In Search of Coctail Culture by Vegas Seven

March 11-17, 2010

In Search of Cocktail Culture And A host of other drinking stories Why you BoWl Better With Beer Author timothy o’grAdy’s fAvorite PuBs one fABulous Wine Weekend A toAst to John l. smith

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Contents

This Week in Your CiTY seVeN DaYs

The highlights of this week. By Susan Stapleton

Reports on culture, politics and business from The New York Observer. Plus: The NYO crossword puzzle and the weekly column by personal ﬁnance guru Kathy Kristof.

Yes, now there’s an app for every drinking occasion. By Eric Benderoff

local NewsrooM

Why our kindergarteners are overweight, and the one hospitality category in Las Vegas that’s up in revenue. Plus: David Schwartz’s Green Felt Journal and Michael Green on Politics.

NatioNal NewsrooM

tech

the latest

Our food critic ﬁnds a bonanza of ethnic eats in a typical shopping center. By Max Jacobson Plus: The biggest thrill at the top of the Stratosphere, and a Rising Star mixologist.

DiNiNg

More Wine, better nails and faster cars. Edited by Melissa Arseniuk

societY

Snapshots from the Ross Miller fundraising party at the Palms.

100

traVel

How to have a wine time in Santa Cruz. By Geraldine Campbell

stYle

This week’s Look, a report on one-off wonders, and a few choice Enviables.

102

sports & leisure

Five things every Las Vegas golfer should know this spring. Plus: Going for Broke By Matt Jacob

Nightlife

Seven Nights ahead, fabulous parties past and a St. Paddy’s party roundup.

110

seVeN QuestioNs

arts & eNtertaiNMeNt

Your guide to the spring version of the Neon Reverb music festival. Plus: Rex Reed goes to the movies.

On the cover and above: Herbs & Rye mixology. Photography by Anthony Mair

We turn the tables on R-J columnist John L. Smith by asking him the questions. By Elizabeth Sewell

Features 28 Mr. pub

The beauty of pub culture, by a writer who knows. By Timothy O’Grady

a tour of cocktail culture

Mixology enlightenment, one drink at a time. By Cindi Reed

a grape escape

The underground passion of our city’s top sommeliers. By Max Jacobson March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 9

Vegas seVen Publishers

Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger AssociAte Publisher, Michael Skenandore

Editorial editoriAl director, Phil Hagen AssociAte editor, Melissa Arseniuk News editor, Sean DeFrank A&e editor, Cindi Reed coPY editor, Paul Szydelko coNtributiNg editor, T.R. Witcher coNtributiNg writers

Tiffannie Bond, Geraldine Campbell, Dr. Ben Conmy, MJ Elstein, Timothy O’Grady, Michael Green, Mericia González, Matt Jacob, Max Jacobson, Jarret Keene, Meredith McGhan, Jaymi Naciri, Jessica Prois, Rex Reed, Jim Rose, Christpher Rosen, Amy Schmidt, David Schwartz, Elizabeth Sewell, Cole Smithey, Susan Stapleton iNterNs

Kelly Corcoran, Patrick Moulin, Robert Opacki

art Art director, Lauren Stewart seNior grAPhic desigNer, Marvin Lucas grAPhic desigNer, Thomas Speak stAff PhotogrAPher, Anthony Mair coNtributiNg PhotogrAPhers

Jessica Blair, Hew Burney, Danielle DeBruno, Brenton Ho, Tomas Muscionico, Tony Tran coNtributiNg illustrAtor, Rob Tornoe

Production/distribution director of ProductioN/distributioN, Marc Barrington AdvertisiNg coordiNAtor, Jimmy Bearse

salEs AccouNt MANAger, Chelsea Heﬂey AccouNt eXecutive, Christy Corda, Tracy Story-McPherson and Robyn Weiss

Comments or story ideas: comments@weeklyseven.com Advertising: sales@weeklyseven.com Distribution: distribution@weeklyseven.com Vegas Seven is distributed each thursday throughout southern nevada.

WenDOH MeDIa COMpanIes Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger vice PresideNt, PUBLISHING, Michael Skenandore director, MARKETING, Jason Hancock eNtertAiNMeNt director, Keith White creAtive director, Sherwin Yumul iNterActive MediA MANAger, Josu Ibarguen eveNt coordiNAtor, Richard Alexander

FinancE director of fiNANce, Gregg Hardin AccouNts receivAble MANAger, Rebecca Lahr geNerAl AccouNtiNg MANAger, Erica Carpino credit MANAger, Erin Tolen

PublisHEd in association WitH tHE obsErVEr MEdia GrouP Copyright 2010 Vegas Seven, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of Vegas Seven, LLC is prohibited. Vegas Seven, 888-792-5877, 3070 West Post Road, Las Vegas, NV 89118 10

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

COntributOrs

Anthony Mair, Staff photographer, “A Tour of Cocktail Culture,” page 30; and practically this whole issue, including the cover We met Anthony one morning in February, and he started working for us that afternoon. Things just seem to happen that way for the young Birmingham native who came to Las Vegas four years ago. “I have been into photography for not even two years now. In my ﬁrst six months of owning a camera I already had work published internationally. I have since shot for Lexus and various car magazines and websites here in the U.S. and Belgium. I’m proud to be a part of a new magazine like Seven and look forward to being a part of its success.” By the way, that’s Birmingham, England, in case you don’t recognize his accent. “Once someone asked where I was from, and when I said ‘Birmingham’ they thought I meant Alabama. Good times.”

Timothy O’Grady, “Mr. Pub,” page 28 Tim grew up in Chicago and, after college, went to Ireland on a whim—then spent the next 35 years in Europe. His most recent book is Divine Magnetic Lands: A Journey in America (Random House, 2009), a 15,000-mile travelogue about his homeland that included a stop in Las Vegas. He came back last fall as a fellow at UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, and for a variety of good reasons—his writing talent, his pub knowledge and his Irishness (he also has a good story about how that was made ofﬁcial)—we asked him to write our lead feature. You should also know that Tim is behind one of the more interesting events on St. Patrick’s Day: If I Could Read the Sky, a performance based on his novel that includes music, photography and his narration (see page 82).

Cindi Reed, Arts and entertainment editor, “A Tour of Cocktail Culture,” page 30 We put Cindi (a.k.a. C. Moon Reed) on the trail of Vegas Cocktail Culture not just because she’s written a ton about the bars in town, but because of her fondness for evolution. The sixth-generation Texan lived in France for a year and then went to grad school at Arizona State before moving to Vegas in 2008. She is a writer and photographer who has quickly adapted to the role of editor. And you get the idea that, in addition to a burning desire to add “novelist” to her résumé, there’s always something new she’d like to try. “If I wasn’t a writer, photographer, artist or aspiring roadie, I’d be a cocktail waitress because I like the human interaction,” she says. “But I’d have to learn to add ﬁrst.” Yes, she does appreciate a good drink, too. “When I ﬁrst moved to Vegas, my favorite cocktail was a dirty vodka martini because it made me feel dangerous yet sophisticated. Now, especially after this article, I have too many favorites to mention. But I’ve learned to appreciate fresh ingredients and the joy of new creation.” Read more about Cindi at cmoonreed.com.

Correction: PR Plus COO and partner Alissa Kelly was misidentiﬁed in the March 4 issue of Vegas Seven. We apologize and want prospective stalkers to know they can follow her on Twitter via @vegaspr. Also, in case you missed it last week, her hilarious take on Chatroulette can be found at weeklyseven.com/chatroulette.

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Seven DayS The highlights of this week in your city.

Compiled by Melissa Arseniuk and Susan Stapleton

Thur. 11 Independent redneck woman Gretchen Wilson walked away from Columbia Records and releases her new album, I Got Your Country Right Here, on her own label, Redneck Records, at the end of the month. The free spirit comes to town for a free show at Stoney’s Rockin’ Country, which means you can take the $20 you would have paid to see her elsewhere and apply it to the allyou-can-drink beer special. Ladies can also buy beers one-by-one—which is $1 at a time because it’s ladies’ night. Meanwhile, rides on the mechanical bull, as always, are free for everyone. 9151 Las Vegas Blvd. South, doors at 7, show at 8:30 p.m.

Fri. 12 The Las Vegas Wranglers celebrate the 98th birthday of the spritely squad that brought us Thin Mints and Do-si-dos—the Girl Scouts—with special jerseys complete with the Scouts’ iconic sash. Grab a box of Tagalongs and cheer on the home team as they take on the Bakersﬁeld Condors at the Orleans Arena (7:05 p.m., $12.50-$38). Or skip the cookies and go for a second helping of country at Green Valley Ranch. Songwriters Lee Miller and Travis Howard have penned ballads for several big-name country stars (including Brad Paisley, Trace Adkins and Miranda Lambert) and they will talk about, then perform a few of the hits they created at “Nashville Unplugged: The Story Behind the Song.” The $5 cover includes one well or draft drink. At Ovation. 8 p.m., 21+.

Sat. 13 Casino MonteLago is closing on March 14 but operations continue at MonteLago Village Resort, as brewmasters Steve MacMillan and Jon Christensen conduct a two-hour workshop about the basics of making beer. Expand your hops and barley knowledge at 11 a.m., then check out Brews Best Village Beer Fest from 2-8 p.m. Advance passes for Beer Fest get you into the workshop. (Advance passes $25, newvistacommunity.org; stay-andplay packages from $169, montelagovillage.com.) Another option: Get into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit with Celtic dancers, festive ﬂoats, bagpipers and marching bands at the 44th annual Sons of Erin St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Festival. The procession starts at 10 a.m. and the carnival goes for 12 hours. At the Henderson Events Plaza, 200 S. Water St., free.

Sun. 14 Set your clocks forward: Daylight saving time is here. While you might not have time to hit the StairMaster today since the day is an hour shorter, try to find time to cheer on climbers as they compete in the second annual Scale the Strat finals. Starting at 12:30 p.m., the final 50 of about 400 entries navigate the Stratosphere’s 1,455 stairs to ascend the tower’s 108 floors, all in support of the American Lung Association in Nevada. Couch potatoes rejoice: No stairs are required to watch the race to the top, thanks to a network of closed-circuit TVs scattered throughout the casino. Register or donate at scalethestrat.com.

Mon. 15 Have an artful Honey, I Shrunk the Kids moment at Bellagio’s Conservatory and Botanical Gardens as you check out Susan P. Cochran’s new installations. The new display includes towering yellow jonquils, 15-foot-tall mushrooms and giant bronze ants. While you’re there, climb on top of the 8,500-pound queen ant for a different view of the tulips, poppies, daisies and mums that ﬁll the four gardens on display. At Bellagio. Through May 9, free.

Tues. 16 Join renowned chef Geno Bernardo as he goes back to school and prepares a four-course meal alongside students from UNLV’s Harrah Hotel College program. The sixth Artist Series dinner, which raises money for scholarships, includes four courses of ﬁne food, including meat-stuffed dumplings, panseared turbot with Maine lobster sauce Americana and beef steak with foie gras. Diners can then enjoy a special version of build-your-own-cannoli similar to the one Bernardo serves up at his home base, Nove Italiano at the Palms. In the Stan Fulton Building at UNLV. 6-9 p.m., $100, 895-1330 for reservations.

Wed. 17 If you’re looking for a raucous night, discover some new music at the Hard Rock Café on the Strip, where Ry Cuming plays “ShamRocked.” The Aussie performer’s sound is deﬁnitely different (think Jeff Buckley-meets-The Police) and the atypical event also features a Lucky Charms eating contest. Offbeat? Sure—but it’s all for a good cause: Admission is by suggested donation and your $10 or so goes to support Musicians on Call. Doors at 7, show at 8 p.m., 21+. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 13

The LaTesT

What’s hip, what’s happening, what’s going on—and what you need to know right now.

Compiled by Melissa Arseniuk

The sound of (Vegas) Music The worlds of emerging music, film and technology converge and take over Austin, Texas, this week as the 24th annual South By Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) gets under way. Film is the focus of the first five days of the conference, beginning March 12, while the interactive component runs through March 16. The music component doesn’t come into play until March 17, but when it does, Las Vegas band-on-the-verge Imagine Dragons will be there. “We’re all pretty stoked for SXSW,” the group’s drummer, Andrew Tolman,

Imagine Dragons

says. “We’re especially excited to play the BMI showcase and a few other really excellent gigs.” Of course the trip won’t be all business for the ﬁve-piece. “I don’t think any of us have been to Texas, and we plan on maximizing our time there soaking up the sun, eating like kings and getting our hands on as much free stuff as humanly possible,” Tolman says. Other Las Vegas ambassadors to SXSW include the world premiere of Reggie Bythewood’s ﬁlm One Night in Vegas (about Sept. 7, 1996—the night Mike Tyson fought Bruce Seldon and Tupac Shakur was shot), reggae rap metal rockers One Pin Short, Beauty Bar regulars the Afghan Raiders and eclectic local favorites Moksha. Before they head to Austin, One Pin Short plays Acoustic Strip at House of Blues on March 11 (At Mandalay Bay, 8 p.m., all ages, free); Imagine Dragons play Beauty Bar as part of the Neon Reverb Music Festival on March 12 (517 E. Fremont St., doors at 8 p.m., ages 21+, $8); and Afghan Raiders play Beauty Bar as part of Neon Reverb the following night, too (doors at 9 p.m., ages 21+, $5).

Imagine a sports car that takes you from zero to 60 mph in less than 3.2 seconds but can get up to 78 miles per gallon, too. Engineers at Porsche are doing more than that. The automaker unveiled that very car—the 918 Spyder—at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show on March 1. Still, don’t expect to see it on roads anytime soon: It’s just a concept car. Someday the Spyder will have a 500 horsepower V8 with both gas and electric powertrains that is capable of 198 mph. The design calls for straight-up electric, electric-gas hybrid, sport hybrid and race hybrid modes. Until that dream becomes a reality, there’s another ﬂashy new model to focus on—and you can take this one for a test drive. The Jaguar XJ is coming to the possible future home of the 918—Gaudin Jaguar, Porsche, Aston Martin. The most daring Jaguar design in 40 years, Jag’s design director has called it, “the most emphatic statement yet of Jaguar’s new design direction.”

The XJ’s elongated design includes three side windows and a totally new back end featuring wrap-over taillights. Inside, the dash has an eight-inch and an innovative 12.3-inch instrument display that looks like one from a jet cockpit. Four models are available, ranging in price from the 5.0-liter V8, 385 horsepower XJ ($72,500) to the to the 510 horsepower XJL Supersport ($115,000). Want to see it for yourself? Gaudin is welcoming its newest addition on March 16 with a launch and drive event from 1 to 4 p.m. followed by food, appetizers and an up-close and personal look at the new beauty from 5 to 8 p.m. 7200 W. Sahara Ave., RSVP via Facebook, http://bit.ly/ XJ_Event, 571-4979. The Porsche 918 Spyder

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

The Jaguar XJ

South By Southwest photo by SkyHigh photography

Driving Dreams, Driving Reality

This week in your ciTy

Drai’s Goes hollywood

Fake It, No Tips Required From surgical enhancements to spray tans, Las Vegas ladies do know how to fake it—but there’s another way of going pas naturel that looks and feels like the real thing. Bio Sculpture Gel nails are the talk of the town—well, Town Square’s Beauty Lounge, at least—because, unlike traditional acrylic and gel nails, they won’t chip, lift or damage natural nails. The South African-developed gel is applied in two coats and cured under a UV light. Once set, they are flexible, durable and can be removed using a gentle soak-off method. Beauty Lounge owner Lynn Tang wasn’t a fan at first because the start-up costs were daunting, but she realized it was worth the investment after being unable to find another product that offered similar results. “You get what you pay for,” she says, noting the treatment lasts about four weeks. The $45 for an overlay (and $30 for a fill) is the same price Beauty Lounge charges for regular gels (and $5 more than acrylics), and this month new customers can try Bio Sculpture for $20. While Beauty Lounge’s two locations just began offering Bio Sculpture a few weeks ago, they aren’t the only ones offering the service. The product is available at about 10 other salons in Las Vegas and Henderson, including Emerge Day Salon and Spa (4180 S. Grand Canyon Drive), Amp at the Palms, Christophe Salon at MGM Grand and Aria Salon and Spa at CityCenter. biosculpturegel.com

Hollywood and Vine is known for “Love Potion No. 9,” but Victor Drai and brothers Cy and Jesse Waits are hoping to change that with the introduction of their latest nightlife undertaking, Drai’s Hollywood. The $15 million project sits high above the famous intersection, atop the new W Hollywood. L.A.’s newest hotspot follows in the well-heeled footsteps of the trio’s successful Las Vegas ventures Tryst, XS and Drai’s namesake afterhours haunt in Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon. “We’re not Vegas in L.A.; we’re L.A. with the same Vegas service—and still have it tight and exclusive,” Jesse Waits says. Helping them achieve this goal is longtime Tao VIP host Larson Legris, whom Drai recruited and relocated for the project. To overcome the hot-oneday-not-the-next problem that plagues the L.A. club scene, Waits says their plan was to “come out here and do it different.” The strategy included Drai’s signature over-the-top, opulent style: The space exudes sheer luxury from top to bottom, featuring prime views of the Hollywood Hills from ﬂoor-toceiling windows, plus luxe red velvet walls, indoor/outdoor seating and a rooftop pool. The main-ﬂoor members-only lounge ups the exclusive ante, admitting only the best of the best clientele. Meanwhile, an on-site restaurant with seating for 120 also factors into the mix, with a menu by chef Claude Segal. draishollywood.com

Cocktail Heroics

Drai, center, and the Waits brothers. Photo by Jana Cruder

Tony Abou-Ganim wrote the book on Las Vegas mixology. He was Bellagio’s original resident cocktail guru—handpicked by Steve Wynn—back at the turn of the century when Strip bartending was all about volume and the drinks were fancy just for being red. Thanks to his pioneering efforts, talents and tastes, today we’re among the nation’s most innovative cocktail cities. Now Abou-Ganim has written the book, and this time it’s a 200-page, hardbound tribute to the deliciousness of his craft. The Modern Mixologist: Contemporary Cocktail Classics (Surrey Books), due out March 26, is a collection of his best drink recipes from “30 years behind bars,” including the famous Cable Car, which he invented during his San Francisco beverage-development days, and the Hard Eight, which came to him right here in his adopted city. Not only are there instructions with and a story behind every cocktail, the oversize book showcases the photography of James Beard Award-winner Tim Turner, who brings out the best in Tony’s sensuous creations. For both men, this project was obviously a labor of love, and while that’s great for them, we’ll drink to the fact that—from its history lessons to mixing methods—the book will be put to good use at home, too. themodernmixologist.com, preorders for $35.

More Wine for Us! When Total Wine & More came to town March 4, it brought some boozy brains with it. All of the store’s 25 new associates had to pass two wine exams, and the store has an ongoing employee wine education program, as well. It’s all part of the effort to create a different wine-buying experience for Las Vegas oenophiles. Total Wine & More, recipient of Beverage Dynamic’s 2008 Retailer of the Year award, has 63 stores in 11 states. Our branch, in Boca Park (730 S. Rampart Blvd.), hosts three weekly wine tastings:

noon to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. A wine-o wonderland, the new 27,000-square-foot store carries 8,000 wines, including 1,100 cabernet sauvignons, 750 chardonnays, 500 merlots, 250 zinfandels and 600 pinot noirs. And Wine and More’s “more” includes 2,000 kinds of spirits (500 vodkas, 220 scotches and 230 rums, among others) and 1,000 beers. It blows big smoke, too, with more than 200 high-end cigars in the walk-in cigar humidor. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 15

THE LaTEsT THougHT

Do You Really Perform Better When You Drink? A couple of experts unveil their Optimal Altered State theory on how a little imbibing might indeed sharpen your competitive edge

By Drs. Ben Conmy and Joey St. Germain

16 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

that frightening edge of competition has been removed through a cheeky few tipples from the courage cup. (Full disclosure: The only time one of the authors of this article beat the other in pool was after four Captain and Cokes. It went downhill from there.) Time and again people point to the fact that those few drinks really helped with the performance by “relaxing me,” “letting me enjoy the moment” or “just letting me play the game.” How much of this is psychological? We believe it would be naive to dismiss the OAS as a simple drunken scenario in which you don’t care anymore. Much like kissing the wrong girl, you know what you’re doing, but instinct takes over and you stop thinking. You just do. Your mind gets out of the way. This is similar to findings in the high-brow psychological literature on performance, which alludes to this state when athletes achieve a level of automaticity (when actions are executed without volition or conscious control, they are involuntary). The effect of OAS can potentially facilitate the average pub-goer reaching this near perfect level of arousal and automaticity and, in theory, perform at their best. Of course, another key aspect of performing at a high standard is the level of confidence a performer is experiencing. The OAS theory posits that at a certain point confidence is maximized. There is a topic in the psychological literature termed self-efficacy, which refers to people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance. More times than not, a competitor with positive self-efficacy has the greatest likelihood of performing at their full potential in a given task. Haven’t we all heard someone say at a

certain point, “OK, that’s it, now you get my A-Game”? How often does that coincide with a few confidenceinducing drinks? The crucial aspect of OAS is that the thinking stops. Once a competitor becomes aware of what is happening to them and they subsequently begin to think about it, the automaticity of the process is compromised, and the outcome is once again mediocre at best. Once again, we do not endorse drinking and sporting—nothing of the sort. We’ve all seen the debilitating effects of alcohol on physical performance and coordination when a few drinks becomes 12 too many. We are simply acknowledging that for some people, the positive psychological effects of imbibing moderate amounts of alcohol might outweigh the negative physical effects. In the end, a nip of Jameson (or five) for some, might be just as effective as several hours of intensive training. So, next time you step up to the table, the lane or the board, try not to think about how many drinks you’ve had, what the score is, or why your fingers feel like sausages. Just lean back, breathe deeply, and let your body do what it knows it can.

crucial aspect of OAS “is The that the thinking stops.”

Dr. Joey St. Germain completed his Ph.D. in 2009 proving poker is a game of skill, not luck. It was the first scientific study of its kind in the continental United States. Dr. Ben Conmy, a Las Vegas-based performance consultant who specializes in sport psycholog y techniques, has worked with several athletes who argue that the ability to have “the odd beer” helps facilitate their performance. He continues the dialogue that this might not be the most efficient way to perform effectively long-term.

Illustration by Marvin Lucas

It’s down to the 8-ball, you have a length-of-the-table shot, and everything has built to this glide of the cue. Do you reach for the chalk or do you reach for the Guinness? It’s the final frame in a bowling competition; you need a strike and six pins to win. Do you reach for the handdryer or polish off your Jack and Coke? Many of us have heard, “I play better after a few drinks.” Just talk to David Wells, who pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees in 1998 and then admitted he was still half in the bag from the night before. Presented here is an argument for the logic and science behind this reasoning. It is fundamental to state at this juncture that we are not in any way endorsing drinking when engaging in sport. However, we are acknowledging that it happens and presenting a case for its potential and/or perceived effectiveness. OK, OK! The official study will follow someday soon, but for now, suspend your disbelief and read on. It is our contention that certain individuals—specifically, competitors who are average/good but not exceptional in a particular sport—perform best in competitive arenas that allow the easy consumption of alcohol (darts, bowling, pool, etc.) when they reach what we term their Optimal Altered State, or OAS. Now, clearly this is not the moment we see someone doubled over talking to the toilet bowl for comfort, or standing atop a building yelling that they know the secrets of the Woodstock festival. We are talking about that point— this may be one drink for some people; four or five for others—where you have consumed just enough alcohol to make you feel supremely gifted. Through a considerable amount of anecdotal research over the past few years, it has become apparent that a number of individuals do indeed perform better when

THE LaTEsT Gossip Star-studded parties, celebrity sightings, juicy rumors and other glitter.

Got a juicy tip? gossip@weeklyseven.com

star Gazing

Tweets of the Week Compiledby@marseniuk

@curtiswalker That McDonald’s commercial you just saw on the oscars was ﬁlmed in Vegas. That’s Redrock. So nice to see Vegas without neon sometimes.

@lloydalmighty Whatever happened to ‘What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas’? Cirque de Soleil should never leave that town. #oscars Breckin Meyer and Seth Green at Blush, Jersey Shore personalities Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Sammi Giancola at Jet, DJ Skribble at Studio 54, and Leighton Meester at Haze.

What is Holly Hiding?

@Vegasgeoff Todd English P.U.B at Once again, she expressed herself on Twitter. “Did I really just host a nightclub in a bathing suit?” she asked at 1:28 a.m. “Pictures of my cellulite sure to be all over [the] Internet by tomorrow morning.” Does Hugh Hefner’s former ﬂame suffer from the condition that plagues 90 percent of women? Is she human, after all? Perhaps—but if that’s the case, she hides it well enough. Judging from photos from the event, Madison’s anxiety was unnecessary. There were no signs of cellulite, recently acquired pounds, or excessive Photoshopping—so she’s either as stunning as ever, or photographer Denise Truscello is even more talented with the air-brush than we thought. Either way, fans who showed for the event at Crystals did not leave disappointed.

Angelica Bridges: Angel’s Angel? Does Criss Angel have fellow Luxor headliner Angelica Bridges under a love spell? The duo certainly had partiers wondering on March 6 after getting up close and personal at a fundraiser at Eve. (The nightclub donated the night’s $25 cover charge to victims of the Chilean earthquake.) The pair were looking mighty cozy at one point (left) and, if it’s true, it wouldn’t be the ﬁrst time Angel has stepped out with a Fantasy cast member. Meanwhile, Angel’s Wikipedia page suggests the 18 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

many followers, I’ve already got my agents trying to get me booked on his twitter feed.

Mindfreak magician is dating an unknown “semi pro wrestler” named Olivia Smith. Still, Angel tells Vegas Seven: “Don’t know who that is.” One of Angel’s exes—this one conﬁrmed—contributed to the event by donating an autographed item to the auction. And when Holly Madison’s signed calendar came up for bid, Angel was all class. In her absence and ever the gentleman, he took the liberty of telling everyone how “hot” it was, noting, “I’ve seen all these poses.”

CityCenter has a 7 second beer chug challenge. Do it, beer is free, up to 4 times. Finished the 1st one, no problem.

@DailyFiasco Wow. In Aria AND getting cell service. It’s a Christmas miracle. @_Sims With the exception of the legal dept asking for clarification between fist-pumping and fisting, it was a good week at work.

@fairweatherfrnd You know a fried chicken place is legit when it has private security at the door.

@MooseDiesel81 There’s a mini pony at @taolasvegas and the Heath Department is at Prive?? Does that make any sense?? Hahahahahaha

@Mercedeslv I think the woman in the public restroom meant to ask if I had a tampon to spare. She said pontoon instead. I still said yes.

@jordanrubin Does Carl Sr. know that his son gives people diarrhea?

@hbaldwinLA You would chew him up and spit him out ... he’s totally your type.

Angel and Bridges photo by Hew Burney

It’s not like Holly Madison to be conservative—she is the star of a topless revue, after all—yet the former Playboy model was uncharacteristically and notably covered-up when she hosted a bikini fashion show at Eve nightclub in Crystals at CityCenter on March 5. While seven models donned Adriana Fernandez bikinis, Madison stuck to a modest—boring, even—black one-piece. It was a marked change from last May, when the surgically enhanced Peepshow starlet sported a cute retro plaid two-piece and led 280 other beauties down Las Vegas Boulevard. This year’s notable cover-up begs the question: Does one of Las Vegas’ most overexposed headliners have something to hide? A few spare pounds, perhaps? She and fellow former Playboy personality Laura Croft did indulge in some churros—as she proudly Tweeted—after dinner at Beso before the event. Instead of conﬁdent and playful, the topless show star suddenly seemed insecure in the designer bathing suit.

@FrankCaliendo After just a few tweets, @ConanOBrien has so

Society

Slam Dunk

Secretary of State Ross Miller (inset above) laid on the half-court press March 4 for a campaign fundraising event at the Palms. The effort was held in the hotel’s Hardwood Suite and was co-hosted by Palms president George Maloof, N9NE Group power couple Michael and Jenna Morton, and UFC president Dana White.

Photography by Brenton Ho 20 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

2011 SLS AMG

It has wings for a reason.

925 Auto Show Drive s In The Valley Auto Mall s Henderson, NV 89014 702.485.3000 s www.mbofhenderson.com

ENVIABLES

Style The Look

Photographed by Tomas Muscionico

Book-ish

In what could be described as the antithesis of the Kindle, a ﬁrst-edition copy of Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger has found its way to Las Vegas. The best way to adorn an uberstylish bookcase, this 1951 issue comes unrestored in its original dust jacket. $22,000, available at Bauman Books, in the Shoppes at the Palazzo.

TIm BAVINgToN, 43

Artist, Tim Bavington Studio Style icon: The Modfather, Paul Weller, for his “self-expression and individualism.” What He’s Wearing Now: Paul Smith Gents woven cotton shirt, silk tie, straight-ﬁt jeans and Rabbit trainers from the Paul Smith boutique in Crystals at CityCenter. A product of 1970s London, during its mod revival and the advent of punk rock, Tim’s personal style is a combination of both. The evidence of which is scrawled on his chest when he wears his favorite T-shirt emblazoned with a Sex Pistols’ album cover. His mod sensibility comes across in his paintings, inspired partly by his favorite designer, Paul Smith, and the clothier’s striped shopping bag, circa 1987.

All hAil the Queen

For more than 100 years, Liberty of London has been a household name across The Pond. On March 14, Target debuts its Liberty of London home collection including garden implements. The British surely have a thing or two to teach Las Vegans about tilling the caliche. Happy hoeing! $20, target.com

– Amy Schmidt

Mousse 2010

Want luscious curls with bounce? Shu Uemura Art of Hair introduces Ample Angora and Kaze Wave enriched with Japanese Cedar Bud representing the next generation of mousse. Both $33, available at Moxie Hair Studios, 254-9000. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 23

Style

One-Off Wonders The big business and even bigger fan base behind ‘capsule’ lines

By Jaymi Naciri When H&M announced that Jimmy Choo was creating an “affordable” line of shoes, clothes and accessories, it was as though the holy grail of style had been unearthed. Fashion blogs tripped over each other trying to get a ﬁrst glimpse of the collection. So did otherwise mild-mannered folks for whom discounted Jimmy Choos represented an opportunity to dip a toe, or 10, into shoe nirvana. “Come hell or high water, I had to have those shoes,” says writer/mom/sideline fashionista Melissa Bertolino, who was dismayed that line was not being released within striking distance of her Phoenix home. “I sent out a plea on Facebook to see if any of my L.A. friends were willing to pick up a pair for me. One friend was willing to do it— until she saw the line outside the building 20 hours before the store was opening. I received a message on Facebook that simply read, ‘Hell, no.’” 24 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Plenty of others were willing to endure daylong lines outside the 250 stores carrying the collection before the Nov. 14 launch. Everything sold out within hours. Similar lineups/sellouts have been reported for H&M collections from Matthew Williamson and Roberto Cavalli, to name a few. An H&M spokesperson will merely say, “There has been great interest from our customers for all our designer collaborations.” H&M has been collaborating with high-end designers for lower-end offerings since November 2004, starting with Karl Lagerfeld—a collection that was reported to have helped boost the company’s proﬁts by 22 percent that quarter. But while the retailer crawled across the United States (the ﬁrst West Coast store didn’t open until fall 2005 in San Francisco), stores such as Target

were making high-end fashion attainable for a whole nation of happy shoppers via the fashion stylings of Isaac Mizrahi. Seeing the Mizrahi name next to such Target staples as Xhilaration, Merona and even Mossimo may not have elicited shrieks of delight from skeptical shoppers at ﬁrst. But as the Target brand gained in whimsy, so too did the notion of throwing a few women’s garments in the cart alongside the garden tools and toilet paper; after all, who was buying up all that Mizrahi gear—a haul that was reportedly in the $100-million-peryear range? Mizrahi left Target after ﬁve years for Liz Claiborne in 2008, but the big-box giant is hardly lacking in fashion star power. Recent collections have included Anna Sui and Rodarte, and enthusiasm is reaching a fever pitch for upcoming

Try on eBay for designer pieces If you missed out on the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection or want to get your hands on one of the last pieces designed by Alexander McQueen, eBay is the place to go. A pair of black Jimmy Choo for H&M studded ballet flats are priced at $169 and black over-the-knee boots are $375 (in-store prices were $69 and $299, respectively). Look for pieces from the McQ Alexander McQueen for Target collection, including the zigzag print dress for $179 and the trench coat for $199, ($70 and $80 in stores). On eBay you’ll also find pieces from H&M’s Stella McCartney and Comme des Garcons collections, as well as several of the just-released Sonia Rykiel pour H&M knitwear pieces, albeit at a 100 percent premium. eBay has gotten into the designer collaboration business as well. Narciso Rodriguez’s first-ever eBay Capsule Collection went on sale Feb. 15, with prices ranging from $65 to $350. “I am extremely excited by the possibilities that this new online sales channel brings to my business long term,” Rodriguez says. “For me it’s always been about dressing many women of all ages, all types, all sizes, and this special collection on eBay is a unique opportunity to reach a broad global audience.” (Note: eBay prices fluctuate daily.) Above: A first look at Zac Posen for Target; available in April. Opposite page: Jean Paul Gaultier (strip shirt, yellow dress and black dress) and Rodarte for Target (blue dress and denim jacket) were released in early 2010 to rave reviews.

collections from Jean Paul Gaultier (March 7 through April 11) and Zac Posen (April 25 through May 30). “Target’s goal with any design partner is to identify designers who share their philosophy of offering great design and high quality at an excellent value,” Target spokesman Joshua Thomas says. “Target works hard to retain the spirit and point of view of the individual designer while also making the collection marketable to their guests.’’ Which is a nice way to say that Target (and H&M and Kohl’s, which famously features Vera Wang’s lowerend line) expects the designs to be ﬁrst-rate even if the materials aren’t always as luxe, the cuts as generous or the prices as high. “I have an appreciation for luxury brands and all the status that comes with them, but not the cash ﬂow,” Bertolino says. “So when the designer lines come out at stores like Target and H&M, I’m always interested.

Left: Matthew Williamson for H&M

Sometimes the merchandise is great. Other times, it’s obvious the materials and construction are cheap.” Ultimately, it is the combination of reputation, status, and price that draws in everyone from casual shoppers to designer enthusiasts—even if that enthusiasm doesn’t always translate to long waits. “I was tempted to get a press pass for the Jimmy Choo H&M,” says fashion editor Dena Smolek of dluxelist.com. “When I read about the Choo madness, I was happy I’d passed. But when I learned that Rodarte for Target was released a day early at the West Hollywood, Calif., store, I jumped at the chance to [buy] three pieces that I wear frequently. I bought them because I knew the chances of being able to buy Rodarte’s RTW collection are slim to none, due to pricing. Given my good experience with Rodarte, I will happily check out the new Target collections as they become available. I have my eye on the Gaultier Trench Coat. Will I stand in line? Probably not.” Narciso Rodriguez’s capsule collection for eBay. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 25

Style

Seven Very Nice Things Compiled by MJ Elstein

Drink Up Cocktailing with Pizzazz

1. Martha Stewart Collection “Waterman” glassware Martha knows best and says it is time for new glasses. $21.99 (set of 4) at Macy’s Home Store. 2. Urban Outfitters anchor bottle opener Christen a bottle of brew with this gold-toned accessory. $8 at Urban Outﬁtters, Mandalay Place or Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. 3. Z Gallerie “Carat” martini glass This jewel of a glass holds 9.5 ounces of shaken, icy deliciousness. $8 at Z Gallerie, Fashion Show.

4. Design House Stockholm “Fia” carafe Designed by Nina Jobs, the Fia decanter could double as a ﬂower vase if needed. Available in black, amber, crystal and pink. $69 at Unicahome. 5. Alessi “123dl” glasses Designed by Harri Koskinen for Alessi, the “123dl” set is perfect for water, white and red wine. $33 (set of 3) at Unicahome. 6. Martha Stewart Collection seven-piece bar tool kit Become a master mixologist with all the tools needed to craft the perfect cocktail. $35 at Macy’s Home Store. 7. Faberge “Blanc de Blanc” glasses Made of hand-cut mouth-blown crystal, the rocks glass from Faberge is primed for a special toast. $800 (set of 4) at Saks Fifth Avenue, Fashion Show.

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Mr. Pub In honor of St. Paddy’s Day, novelist and Black Mountain Institute fellow Timothy O’Grady tells Vegas what a true drinking establishment is all about I first went to Ireland more than 30 years ago with a single address in mind—O’Donoghue’s Pub in Merrion Row, Dublin. I went along there the night I landed and when I opened the door it seemed a bomb went off as racing, cacophonous speech, fiddle music, laughter, clattering glasses and calls for pints overwhelmed me and knocked me back. Before me was a multitude of beaming, animated red faces, many with beards as dense as thorn bushes, and all, it seemed, in the midst of speech or joke or song. I went from street to pub and eventually on to a party in a house into which almost all the pub had emptied. When I awoke the next day at 7, it took me two hours to determine whether it was 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. I have been in hundreds of Irish pubs since then—stately Georgian pubs in Dublin with cut glass and wood paneling and avuncular, white-aproned elderly barmen who exuded bonhomie and unflappability; hotel lounges in seaside villages where men sang long narrative songs of increasing surreality; music pubs where the jigs and reels charged at you like stampeding buffalo; Gypsy pubs; horse-trading pubs; tiny pub/shops not much bigger than closets with hams, rubber boots and fishing nets strung from the ceiling and the beer taps almost buried under the balls of wool and chocolate bars for sale on the counter. A pub can be made out of almost any four walls, whether they are of a funeral home, a disused church or your aunt’s living room. I remember counting 23 of them along the main street of the little town of Caherciveen in County Kerry. The pub has traditionally sat beside the church as a prime organizing social force in Ireland. Deals are made, deaths mourned, tales told, romances celebrated, dances danced and catharsis achieved in pubs. Even the radically deregulating plan that produced Ireland’s celebrated economic miracle (and its subsequent collapse) was developed in a pub—the small, wonderful, jewel-like Doheny and Nesbitt, just across the street from O’Donoghue’s in Merrion Row. Virtually every person in Ireland knows how to be in a pub. You see men lifting pints to their mouths with the same ease and intimacy as a carpenter with his tools. To enter a pub in Ireland is something like lifting a woollen winter coat from a peg on a wall and putting it on—it’s warm, familiar, protective, comforting.

28 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

All ages and professions meet—farmhand, priest, grandmother, politician, athlete—united in drink and, often, song. Ireland has produced and exported worldrenowned horses, oysters, software experts, revolutionaries, literary geniuses and singers, but what it is perhaps best known for is craic—an Irish word that conveys a particular mixture of good times, humor and abandon, with traces of both exuberance and innocence and almost always fueled by alcohol. The Irish can be considered the world’s premier professional good-time havers. It is hardly surprising that the Irish pub as a business concept can be found all around the world, from Romania to Beijing to Ecuador, usually decorated with some farm implements, books, brass pitchers, wooden ﬂoors, Celtic script, Guinness, of course, and a picture of James Joyce. Here is the place, the very aura of the pub seems to be saying to you, where you can feel at home, have a good time and drink to excess and be applauded for it. What entrepreneur wouldn’t think this a promising milieu in which to sell alcohol? If this idea appeals to you, such enterprises as the Irish Pub Company will custom-make you a pub in Dublin, ship it to a location of your choice and then assemble it for you—as they did in Las Vegas at Fadó, Quinn’s, Nine Fine Irishmen and J.C. Wooloughan’s. The decor is readily available as pubs have been closing in the hundreds all around Ireland, because of a smoking ban, stricter enforcement of drunk-driving laws and changing social patterns. This is the week of St. Patrick’s Day. Many Irish people remember it as a very solemn day, a national religious holiday when you had to go to Mass and all the pubs were closed. The Irish writer Maeve Binchy has said that when she was a young woman, the only place in Dublin serving alcohol on St. Patrick’s Day was the National Dog Show. Even the most vehement animal-haters developed a sudden sentimental interest in dogs so they could get a drink. Now Ireland itself goes along with the festival of drink and frivolity that the rest of the world celebrated long before it did, a spring saturnalia of green beer, fake red beards, political glad-handing, leaping and yelping and dancing.

Five Great Pubs Timothy O’Grady picks the places he enjoyed most during his Las Vegas pub research.

McMullan’s

This is most homemade and authentic of Las Vegas’ Irish pubs. It’s family-run, a truly autobiographical and genealogical statement by owner Brian McMullan, with his Antrim family history all over the walls. Las Vegas clientele, including Cirque du Soleil performers, take their post-show drinks there. And there is no video poker in the main room. 4650 W. Tropicana Ave.

FadÓ

The well-presented, two-level creation by the Irish Pub Company is always thronged whenever I’ve been there. Good menu and live music, too. 9470 Eastern Ave.

nine Fine irishMen

This pub is smart and urban, with very much the feel of a higher grade, well-appointed, classical Dublin pub. In the New York-New York hotel-casino.

sean Patrick’s

The high-ceilinged neighborhood pub has a rural feel and is distinguished by something of a Celtic Twilight mood created by lyrical phrases set out in old Irish lettering on the walls. 8255 W. Flamingo Road.

J.c. Wooloughan’s

Although it’s a casino pub, it nevertheless allows you to feel in a world apart from the whirring and tinkling machines. There’s a nautical theme, with nicotine-colored walls like many real Irish pubs. JW Marriott, 221 N. Rampart Blvd.

Fadó is a great place for food, conversation and, of course, beer. Photo by anthony Mair

A Tour of Cocktail Culture Our writer journeys to the center of the fresh Las Vegas mixology scene

By Cindi Reed Photography by Anthony Mair

“What do you like?” I’d been waiting a long time to hear those words. Andrew Pollard, the legendary creator of Noir Bar’s cocktail menu, smiled at me in a perfect likeness of Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail, minus the flair-tending. Don’t tell anybody, but Noir Bar is a secret speakeasy hidden in the folds of Luxor’s LAX nightclub. It’s “famous” for both its restrictive door policy (which has eased in this economy) and for Andrew’s ability to sculpt your perfect cocktail based on your specific preferences. It was this skill—introduced by his soft-spoken question—I’d been waiting so long to test. I told him I was in the mood for gin and that I liked flavor but not syrupy sweetness. The next thing I knew, I was sipping a rose gimlet (Hendrick’s Gin, homemade rose syrup, lemon juice and lychee purée). It tasted smooth yet powerful, like a perfectly tuned race car cutting through the open road. I’m sad to say it took this assignment about Vegas Cocktail Culture to get myself to Noir Bar, because I had been missing out. I was always a DCR girl when it came to speakeasies. That stands for Downtown Cocktail Room, and that’s where I’d fallen in love with George Sproule’s magic recipes one Friday night at the end of a hard week, when he adapted my favorite DCR summer cocktail—the Lost Creek Crush—into something hard enough to knock the workweek right out of me. We all know about Cocktail Culture in general. How, according to alcohol historian and author of Imbibe! (Perigee, 2007), David Wondrich, it’s the one culinary creation that’s truly American. How cocktails were popular in the days of Mad Men. How they took a hit in the ’70s with both the dissemination of prefab drink mixes and the distraction of recreational drugs. And

how, about 10 years ago, Cocktail Culture made a comeback in the bars of New York City and San Francisco with a rediscovery of old-fashioned cocktails and homemade and natural ingredients. But what about Vegas Cocktail Culture? In a city that produces the best gourmet restaurants in the world and way too many oversize, noveltyshaped frozen daiquiris, how do we compare? (Better than the days when the closest we got to Cocktail Culture was with the shrimp variety, I know.) Although I spent the last year writing about bars, I needed an expert opinion. So I enlisted master mixologist for Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc. Bobby “G” Gleason to be my guide on a “cocktail safari,” with the stated goal of discovering the elusive beast that is Vegas Cocktail Culture. Every safari starts at a “home base” before venturing off into the wild. We started at Nora’s Cuisine (6020 W. Flamingo Road) at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday. Although it seems unlikely because it’s off the beaten Strip, this neighborhood Italian restaurant has served as the incubator of quality Cocktail Culture for years. So not coincidentally, my little expedition—consisting of Bobby “G,” his driver, our photographer and me—immediately ran into a

Bartenders at Nora’s (top) and Herbs & Rye (above left) at work in their respective labs. Tony Abou-Ganim gives fellow master mixologist Drew Levinson a sneak peek at his new book, which is due out later this month.

March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 31

Obviously, Bobby G had taken me to both locations to answer that eternal question: Can culture thrive without Strip neon to nourish it? I was happy to confirm that the answer is in the affirmative—at least in terms of cocktails. By this point it was 1:30 a.m. and we’d ventured as far out as one night could carry us. Our eight-hour cocktail safari ended in the luxurious clearing known as Julian Serrano in Aria at CityCenter. Feeling like the victor at the end of a marathon, I sat back in one of the cool hightop bar tables, sipped a cocktail and listened to Bobby G and Chef Serrano himself swap stories about drinks in Italy versus Spain. My stamina exhausted, they were still going strong, continuing that eternal cocktail conversation. It seems that somewhere in the midst of my cocktail safari, I had stopped intellectualizing cocktails and started enjoying myself. While this had made for a fun evening, it didn’t lead to any sure conclusions. A week later, I found myself ruminating over Vegas Cocktail Culture while saddled up to the bar at Sage in Aria for its special themed night called “Prohibition Sundays” (moving to Monday nights on March 15). Once a week, this James Beard-nominated establishment closes the dining room for a party in the bar, serving its fine-dining bar menu and special drinks featuring a rotating A bartender shakes up a drink at Herbs & Rye (above). One of his creations is the Moscow Mule, which Cindi enjoys with Bobby G (right).

group of friendly natives (i.e., local liquor experts and reps) enjoying happy hour. They were in an intense discussion that was focused on a mason jar of a top-secret new whiskey that one of the reps had brought. They let me try a sip, and I indeed could taste the special flavor combinations that I’m not allowed to mention. I was so overwhelmed by the excitement of their conversation and the Vegas Vixen cocktail (starring Kettle Citron, and peach and pomegranate liqueurs) I’d ordered off Nora’s chalkboard that I forgot everybody’s names. Except for master mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim—famous for developing Bellagio’s original cocktail program, which opened the floodgates of our good taste in 1998—who stayed in my mind because he was previewing his beautiful new book, The Modern Mixologist: Contemporary Classic Cocktails (see page 14). I would soon find a pattern of passionate conversations among the cocktail creators and enthusiasts that I would meet. Not because they were drunk or even buzzed, but because they were filled with artistic elation of new creation, a joy that, as a writer, I recognized. These are guys who simply love what they do. Next up was Herbs & Rye, the new bar in the space that was once the Venetian, one of the city’s longestlived restaurants. The menu is a work of literature, with drinks organized by historical era and witty descriptions to boot. Feeling a tad buzzed by this point, I became entranced by watching the bar-back run a pile of lemons through a mechanical hand crank to make fresh lemon juice. But the tangy Moscow Mule (vodka, fresh lime juice and ginger beer served in a traditional copper mug) and the bartender-owner’s story pulled me out of my daze. A friend of Bobby G, Nectaly Mendoza, was willing to share his personal story and photo album, which he keeps behind the 32 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

bar. I flipped through family photos of the bar’s construction as Mendoza explained that they built Herbs & Rye using no outside labor. That he built this bar in two months, sleeping onsite and using every moment of his spare time between his full-time job at Yellowtail. I was inspired by this true labor of love. Of independent people creating something of quality out of the simple love of the craft. Was this Vegas Cocktail Culture? It seemed more like the American Dream. This is where the night starts to blur together in my memory and where I was happy our expedition included a driver. Our next two stops took us far from the neon glow of the Strip, deep into Locals Land: Ciao Ciao on South Durango Drive and one of the Sierra Gold taverns, the upscale flagship of PT’s Pubs. The crowning glory of Ciao Ciao—I didn’t try the pizza—was its White Chocolate Martini with Absolut Vanilla, Baileys Irish Cream and a float of homemade chocolate gelato. Although nothing beats chocolate, the hospitality and enthusiasm of manager Jeff Zaist (a former student of Bobby G’s) came in a close second. As for Sierra Gold, I remember a cute and friendly blond cocktail waitress and a tasty cocktail of Bobby G’s recommendation. But as to what that cocktail was called and what it tasted like specifically, the world will never know.

spirit. The retro theme goes perfectly with the resurgence in old-fashioned cocktails. I chewed thoughtfully on the complimentary pork skins and fried pickles, sipped my Prohibition Punch and chatted with the staff, who were playfully dressed in Depression-era clothing. I thought of all the wonderful, passionate and knowledgeable people I had met along my journey. Like in The Wizard of Oz, meeting one person led to meeting the next as I explored this close-knit, magical world. For example, I met Bryan Davis, “master distiller” of Obsello Absinthe at Sage, who in turn introduced me to Pollard at Noir Bar, where I met Alex Velez, the “resident mixologist” for Crescent School of Gaming & Bartending who has voyaged to Wiccan shops to get herbs for his bitters. Velez is friends with Tobin Ellis of BarMagic, who offered up a mind-blowing cocktail—the Hermosa Dia:

TKRubric

Bobby G and the “cocktail safari” driver talk mixology at Ciao Ciao. Below: The bar at Sage during “Prohibition Sunday.”

Azuñia Añejo, avocado, lime, agave, sweet sea-salt mix, served up—at Feb. 23’s Social Mixology, a weekly traveling speakeasy. Additionally, it turns out that Ellis works on Social Mixology with Drew Levinson, beverage development specialist for Wirtz Beverage, who happened to be one of the people I’d met at Nora’s. This yellow brick road goes on forever, and apparently in a few circles, as well. But in terms of ﬁnding one deﬁnition of Vegas Cocktail Culture, I was stuck. Then, Sage bartender David Seymour handed me a glass of absinthe. I paused and absorbed my surroundings—the Renoir murals, the happy people, the incredible libations—and suddenly, clarity. It was like that moment at the Emerald City, where Glinda the Good Witch points to

Dorothy’s ruby slippers and says you’ve had the power to go home all along. To all of you who say a drink is just a drink, you are wrong. The feeling of that perfect cocktail— be it George’s Lost Creek Crush, Andrew’s rose gimlet or any of the other Vegas cocktail creations—has stayed with me like a charm on my bracelet of memories when the workweek and the price tag are long forgotten. And for me, that’s what Cocktail Culture is. To have a consumable that is so exquisite, so carefully nurtured from the idea of the bartender who creates it, it stays with you. The art of the ephemeral is more beautiful because it doesn’t last. But then again, you can always order another round. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 33

A Grape Escape On the occasional day off, the city’s top sommeliers go underground to cook up a passionate little competition

By Max Jacobson

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Photography by Tomas Muscionico

At a recent Sommeliers in the Kitchen competition, William Sherer's green-chile posole (top) beat out Paolo Barbieri's cioppino (opposite page, top).

The idea was simple at first: Gather a bunch of wine geeks at one of their homes to do a cook-off; a winner is declared, a great deal of wine consumed and the good times roll. “We wanted it to be fun,” says Aureole wine director William Sherer, who came up with the idea a couple of years ago. “But at the same time, we wanted it to reflect our passion for great food and wine matching.” That’s a lot of passion, and so, somewhere along the way, the informal Sunday get-togethers turned into a spirited freestyle competition among the city’s top wine experts. There have been about 10 “Sommeliers in the Kitchen” events, which are held about every two months. (The reason they’re held on Sundays is that many soms are off—remember that when next you make a restaurant reservation.) The first started with huevos rancheros, because Sherer used to live in Texas and New Mexico, and it seemed like a simple way to launch. But the soms’ natural competitiveness surfaced, and this led to the decision to have judges and make the contest formal. Today, it’s almost a blood sport among those who’ve earned advanced degrees from the Court of Master Sommeliers. A recent gathering was at the home of Marche Bacchus owner Jeff Wyatt, and one of the contestants was the Southern Wine and Spirits Corporate Sommelier Carmelo Messina. He’s Italian, and the main ingredient was pasta. Guess who won?

Nonetheless, his was no mailed-in effort. To defeat Henry Davar, former wine director for the Mario Batali restaurants here, Messina cooked tagliatelle with a tomato lobster sauce and crabmeat-stuffed ravioli in Parmesan nutmeg cream with zucchini and vongole (clams). And his masterful pairing sealed the deal: a tony Italian white, Terlano, from the Italy’s mountainous province Trentino Alto Adige, with a good enough edge to cut through the richness of the cream and lobster. From what he’s witnessed thus far, Wyatt would have expected nothing less out of Messina. “This is a venue that gives sommeliers the chance to express their culinary creativity,” he says. “The direction wine is taking is pairing wine with food, and some of these guys are phenomenal chefs.” No less than 85 people showed up at Wyatt’s house—the biggest turnout yet. The last cook-off, held at Messina’s home, featured Sherer; Paolo Barbieri, master sommelier from Alex at the Wynn Las Vegas; and Benito Martinez of Wynn Encore’s Botero. They were allowed to cook whatever they wanted. Barbieri went to his strength, with cioppino, while Martinez did a yellow beef curry. Sherer delivered an excellent green chile posole. But the wine he chose may have won the day. It was Iberian Remix, a blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha grapes from the Central Coast of California. And he made it himself.

Paolo Barbieri with his own brand of Syrah.

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THe LocaL Newsroom seeing the Glass as Half Full Beverage sales one of few things at Strip properties to show improvement By T.R. Witcher

A recent study conducted at UNLV is trying to give Clark County School District ofﬁcials a better picture of the health of incoming kindergartners.

weighing a Heavy situation UNLV study reveals 25 percent of Nevada children entering kindergarten are obese

By Tiffannie Bond Until children reach elementary school, they live largely off the radar, away from most surveys and studies that would normally gauge their health and well-being. The recently released “Health Status of Children Entering Kindergarten” survey focused on the health status of children entering kindergarten in hopes of examining this group, says Denise Tanata Ashby, executive director of the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research in the School of Community Health Sciences at UNLV, which conducted the study. “This is a group of kids it’s really hard to get information on,” Ashby says. “Once they’ve been in school awhile, it’s easy to get data on them. When the kids get into school, that’s when other conditions get recognized. We’re trying to gauge the health of these kids prior to entering the public school system.” One of the standout statistics was the obesity rate. Of the 39.2 percent of parents who responded to the survey statewide, 42 percent of parents provided

their child’s height, weight, age and gender, and of those, 25.3 percent were considered obese. In the coming months, more attention will be paid to the obesity rate as the study’s ﬁndings are examined more in-depth. During that time, clinicians will get a better idea of who the children are, including their household income, background and surroundings, Ashby says. A way to shed preliminary light on the UNLV study’s numbers is to compare it to studies that survey older children. In comparison, the obesity rate seems to be in a holding pattern, Ashby says. “We’re not seeing an increase, so the kids aren’t gaining any more weight, but they’re not losing it either,” she adds. “What this tells us is we need to concentrate on reaching these kids before they get to school.” The survey was given to 9,504 parents in 16 school districts statewide between the child’s registration date and the ﬁrst two weeks of the 2009-10 school year.

Because of its size, a sample group was created for Clark County, which comprised 59 percent of the sample, with 17.6 percent from Washoe County and 23.4 percent from remaining rural counties. In the coming months, the numbers will be broken down to the current Clark County School District area map. Equal attention was paid to lower- and higher-income schools, and although the numbers are generally consistent compared to the ﬁrst study last year, there was a 3 percent increase in children living in households with less than a $25,000 annual income, a product of the less-than-desirable economy, Ashby says. She hopes the information generated by the study will eventually help the school district get a general picture of the health of incoming kindergartners and how to help them. “If we try to do some outreach to get kids enrolled in some of these programs,” she says, “we know who to reach out to.”

Now for a bit of good economic news: According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, beverage sales (not including comped drinks) at the major Strip casinos totaled $536 million in 2009, which was a 5 percent increase from the previous year. That small percentage is signiﬁcant, because the other revenue indicators the board tracks—gaming, rooms and food— showed marked decreases of between 10 and 19 percent. “It was out of the norm that we saw these huge drops in gaming revenue, huge drops in room revenue, but the beverage revenue kind of held its own,” says Frank Streshley, chief of the state’s Tax and License Division. Casino properties that gross more than $1 million in gaming revenue (some 260 of 340 properties in Nevada) have to report their revenue to the state each year. The report is unaudited, but Streshley says, “We assume it’s pretty accurate. It’s a tool we provide for the industry, investors, legislators, analysts.” The casinos don’t report how beverage sales break down—how many of those drinks are soft drinks and how many contain alcohol. And no one knows for sure why beverage sales have held up. Are we merely drowning away our sorrows? Streshley speculates alcohol continues to sell because it’s a “lower-ticket item.” It’s one thing, he says, “to be paying $100 to $400 for a room or eating a $100 steak dinner versus buying a $5 drink.” Mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim, a consultant who runs modernmixologist. com, watches what people are drinking; these days slick cocktails are the buzz instead of beer. Visitors to town may have only two cocktails instead of four beers, but if each cocktail costs $13 and the beer is $4, they’re still spending more money. “People drink in good times, they drink more in bad times,” he says. “I don’t have money to go to Bouchon but I do have money for a cocktail. It’s a gorgeous looking cocktail, why not? People are more selective with their Continued on page 39 March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven

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Green Felt Journal

Taverns maintain big role in gambling ecosystem By David G. Schwartz

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From Irish pubs to Mexican cantinas, it seems that every culture puts its own stamp on imbibing. The United States has generated its own share of distinctive drinking niches—tiki bars ﬂowered in California before spreading across the country in the 1960s, and microbreweries have become almost ubiquitous. Las Vegas has its own twist on the American watering hole—the gaming tavern. In addition to being popular places to drink, these establishments form a substantial part of the area’s gambling culture and gaming economy. Gaming taverns are a genuine part of Nevada’s frontier heritage: When miners were seeking their fortunes on the Comstock Lode, they blew off steam drinking cheap whiskey and playing cards. Slot machines debuted in San Francisco taverns in the late 1890s and didn’t take long to cross the Sierra Nevada range. Today taverns occupy a unique space in the city’s gambling ecosystem. Unlike casinos, which have unrestricted licenses, taverns with restricted-gaming licenses are allowed no more than 15 machines. Built into the bar top, they offer dozens of variations on games of chance, with several ﬂavors of video poker, keno, blackjack and even video reel slots. Depending on the location, each tavern’s daily win per machine averages $50 to $200. Figuring 15 machines, that’s $750 to $3,000 in income per day. Out of the 1,900 places in Clark County with restricted licenses, about 550 are taverns, pubs or bar and grills, with about 8,000 slots among them. (The remaining places are mostly convenience stores, supermarkets and gas stations.) Some of the better-known chains and mini-chains— PT’s Pub, Village Pub and Putter’s Bar and Grill—run their own slot operations in-house. Others farm the maintenance and money handling to slot-route operators—Golden Route, ETT and United Coin are the biggest—that typically earn 10 to 20 percent of all money played.

They do more than just fix broken machines. If a player hits a big jackpot that exceeds the cash in the bar’s till, an on-call truck speeds to the scene, forking over the large bills within minutes. While you sleep (whether it’s on grave or day shift), trucks are cruising the streets of Las Vegas, waiting to pay off the next lucky winner at a bar down the street. The typical tavern gambler likes the basics—light draft beer, tequila, vodka and bourbon are the most popular drinks—and can expect drinks on the house if he steadily bets a dollar per hand or so. The games are mostly the same you’ll find in a casino, and loyalty programs can give players casino perks such as free play and comps. But those who operate gaming taverns claim that their service sets them apart. “At our taverns, there’s more personal recognition,” says Christopher Abraham, vice president of marketing for Golden Gaming, which operates PT’s and Sierra Gold taverns throughout the Valley. “Many of our customers work in the service industry themselves. Once our bartenders get to know them, they’ll find their favorite drink waiting for them before they sit down.” Abraham points with pride to his company’s Golden Gaming University, a course covering everything from customer service to drinks that all employees complete, and the company’s half-off happy hours and daily prize giveaways as examples of giving people what they want in tough times. The 2007 Nevada smoking ban and the economic downturn have slowed business at gaming taverns, but by responding to their customers, they have been able to maintain their niche in a city with about one slot machine for every 14 residents—and that’s no mean feat.

Depending on the location, each tavern’s daily win per machine averages from $50 to $200.

David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.

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Sky-High Opportunities Large-scale ad creator sees value in Las Vegas By Jessica Prois

People are choosing to pay for high-end drinks in Las Vegas more often than expensive meals. Beverages Continued from page 37

disposable income, they still want to have a good time.” Abou-Ganim says the Strip’s evolving cocktail culture may also be contributing to the slight rise. When he began drawing up drink menus at Bellagio in 1998, specialty cocktail menus were rare. Now he says it’s “virtually impossible” to go anywhere and not see one. “Maybe they’re not buying a big bottle of wine but they’re having that second Plymouth martini,” he says. “The bar is an escape.” The trend may be limited to the big casinos, however. According to Nevada Restaurant Association President Katherine Jacobi, NRA members haven’t seen any increase in beverage sales in recent months, and only a “very slight” increase in overall sales. “The beverage industry has been pretty resilient when compared to others,” says Patricia Richards, mixologist at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. She says the resorts have noticed a slight increase in beverage sales, and that she and her colleagues are busier than ever. “Libations are always going to be a strong part of our economy,” she says. Still, though, while the alcohol industry in Las Vegas may be thriving, the same no longer can be said of gaming revenue. As Streshley notes, the state has been collecting data on casino revenue since the 1960s. There have been only two years when the casino industry has reported a net loss on its income statements—2002, when the loss was $300 million, and last year, when the loss was $6.8 billion. Indeed, it’s bad enough to make a person want to drink.

Consumers are walloped by ads from every which way these days. TiVo-ing is the only escape from a barrage of commercials, and faces on billboards become more familiar than friends and family. So what are advertisers doing to stand out? The answer is to go big, and SkyTag, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based company that wraps buildings with large-scale print ads, is leading the way. SkyTag, which has a client list that includes Disney, Sony and Paramount Pictures, has been around since 1969. The company’s work has been present in Las Vegas for more than a decade, beginning in 1998 with a wrap on the side of Luxor to promote Disney’s movie Armageddon. With clients looking to compete in new ways now more than ever, SkyTag owner Mike McNeilly says that makes Las Vegas all the more appealing. He’s touting the city’s supersize-everything mantra to his clients, who primarily advertise in California and New York. “When you do a large graphic in a city like L.A., if you’re doing 10,000 to 20,000 [square] feet, that’s huge,” he says. “When you do that in Vegas, that’s just OK. The scale is entirely different.” McNeilly says 45,000 square feet, or slightly less than the size of a football ﬁeld without the end zones, is a good starting point for ad wraps in Las Vegas, which ranks No. 3 behind California and New York for both volume and technology. Last year’s ad for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on the east side of A wrap advertisement for Rita Rudner’s show at Harrah’s is just one example Luxor was more than 100,000 square feet. of SkyTag’s presence on the Las Vegas Strip. Photo by Anthony Mair SkyTag, which charges up to $1 million for an Las Vegas’ neon signs, which he says were designed to complead, is currently behind the faces of Donny and Marie on the ment the city’s architecture. Flamingo. The company’s role is to print the client’s artwork “These wrap ads should be something that’s effective with on tight-weave mesh and to secure the building spot. In some the landscape. Like a really interesting play on the building,” cases, they’ll work with a company’s creative team to develop a he says. “If you’re advertising Penn & Teller at the [Rio], make site-speciﬁc ad. half the building ‘disappear’ with the signage, for instance.” Production companies are drawn to ads that make the most McNeilly says that as technology in movies such as Avatar impact in a short amount of time, McNeilly says. He contends is becoming more advanced, his ads are, as well. He’s incorthis tactic is especially important now that movies are being porating advanced graphics and LED lights in upcoming ad released on DVD more rapidly. “That’s sort of the new campaigns. “The studios want it to pop up,” he says. “Just like marketing strategy. It’s not like the old days where the movies there’s 3-D in the theaters, there’s lots of new technology we’re might have a long run,” he says. As an example, SkyTag put up a huge graphic on the L.A. Film Tower on the Sunset Strip working with.” So are large static ads on the way out? Not at all, says Chad for Sherlock Holmes’ Christmas release. Now, the movie already McCullough, owner of Las Vegas-based Elite Media. The comwill be available on DVD on March 30. pany’s work has included a T-Mobile ad covering nearly half A larger-than-life ad is a good technique for grabbing consumers’ attention, UNLV marketing professor Mike LaTour of Mandalay Bay. Elite Media also does LED graphics work and says clients want the best of both worlds—huge in scale says. “To some degree, these type of ads are breaking through and newfangled technology. But McCullough says stationary that clutter,” he says. “Our sensory expectations have been ads are still valuable because viewers might miss the point of a elevated with the technology of movies.” But, ultimately the ad high-tech ad as they’re driving down the Strip. needs to drive consumers to want more, he says. “Can you get Hess doesn’t like to see the buildings used as billboards, but is people to a website that will provide information in order to hopeful because “there’s always an alternative counter-trend,” generate more interest?” he says. “Something really good could come of this sign meThere are criticisms against the ads, however. Alan Hess, California-based architecture historian and critic, says building dium. It awaits the right person to see the potential and make a billion dollars off the idea.” wrap ads really aren’t that artistic. He draws the comparison to

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The Local Newsroom

Purposeful or Publicity stunt? California Homicide Investigators Conference exhibit gets mixed reviews By Jessica Prois A line of people snaked through the Palms to view the bloody scenes—including some of the most notorious crimes in history. The two-day public exhibit, which drew more than 10,000 people, was part of the California Homicide Investigators Conference being held at the hotel-casino. While the popularity of the free exhibit surpassed the Los Angeles Police Department’s expectations, it attracted controversy, as well. The jacket, tie and shirt Robert F. Kennedy was wearing when he was assassinated in 1968 was going to be part of the exhibit until the Kennedy family objected. Although the LAPD removed Kennedy’s garments from the exhibit, the question re-

mained: Was this exhibit of crime-related items educational or exploitative? Roger McGrath, a California crime and punishment historian, says the 8,000 square feet of artifacts from the state’s most notorious homicides helped raise empathy from the public for the work the police do. “I think most people are insulated from the reality of crime. They usually see only a cleaned-up murderer wearing an expensive suit in a televised courtroom appearance,” says McGrath, who taught at UCLA for 15 years. “I think it is essential that the public sees evidence gathered at crime scenes, including ghastly photos.” Items showcased in the exhibit included a serving fork used in the 1969 murder of Leno LaBianca that was

The homicide exhibit at the Palms attracted more than 10,000 people. Photo by Anthony Mair

orchestrated by Charles Manson and a photo showing a trail of blood on a tiled walkway leading to Nicole Brown Simpson’s heaped-over body. The exhibit also included histories on the criminals and archived newspaper clippings. Sharon Tate’s sister, Debra, says she received no warning items such as the rope

used by the Manson Family in her sister’s 1969 murder would be on display. “It would have been very easy to call me since everyone in the L.A. district attorney’s ofﬁce has my phone number. At which point, I would have said, ‘No,’” she says. “I wouldn’t have agreed knowing it was open to the public. If it was a closed semiContinued on page 41

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Homicide Continued from page 40

nar, I would have agreed. I don’t see the purpose. It was simply grandstanding.” Jeffrey Dion, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington, D.C., wholly agrees with Tate. “Photographs and personal effects of victims should never be put on public display without the notiﬁcation and consent of the families,” Dion says. “While they may have educational value to a group of homicide investigators, and it could be appropriate to use them in an educational setting, when they invite the public to view them, it trivializes the crime.” But Dennis Kilcoyne, an L.A. homicide detective and president of the California Homicide Investigators Association, says the exhibit was done to show the public the inner workings of a homicide investigation and showcase the hard work of the LAPD. “It’s done in a respectful professional, manner,” says Kilcoyne, who originally proposed the idea for the exhibit to Palms owner George Maloof. “We’re proud of our police department and we’re

proud we could pull this off. This was a massive undertaking.” In response to the fact that the LAPD wanted to put his father’s bloody clothes on display, Kennedy’s son Maxwell said in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, “It is almost incomprehensible to imagine what circumstances would have led to a decision to transport these items across state lines to be gawked at by gamblers and tourists.” Dion maintains that people are, in fact, desensitized to this type of display. “Advocates have held for a long time that murder is not entertainment,” he says. “These were not publicity photos that were taken. These were crime scene photos.” But McGrath says the victims’ status as celebrities is helpful in creating awareness. “If it takes celebrity victims and perpetrators to focus the public’s attention, so be it,” he says. “There is always the risk that some people will interpret such exhibits as macabre but, properly handled, such exhibits can be an important educational tool.”

TORNOE'S TOONS

By Rob Tornoe

March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven

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The Local Newsroom

Politics

A not very special session By Michael Green

As was his wish, the ﬁnal song on Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave is “Aloha Oe,” which means hello or goodbye. Nevada’s 63 legislators recently gathered in Carson City and took a cutting knife to the budget instead of the meat cleaver Gov. Jim Gibbons wanted them to use. Now they have come home to face the music, and “Aloha Oe” may well be their song. Whether some said hello or goodbye to their political careers remains to be seen. That Gibbons has been Nevada’s worst governor ever may not be settled, but he certainly is our most embarrassing one. He opened the session by telling KLAS Channel 8 reporter Jonathan Humbert on camera that he hadn’t been in Washington, D.C., with the woman he texted 800 times in one month, only to fess up the next day. Then came their picture with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who could teach Gibbons a thing or two about how to ruin a marriage. Gibbons also declared when the session would end, prompting lawmakers to dismiss him. They ran about three hours beyond his limit. That’ll teach him. He also ordered staff members to leave a hearing because the questions were nasty. If they can survive working for Gibbons, questions from legislators should be a piece of cake. In the end, he wound up receiving some praise for engaging in discussions with legislators about how to settle budget problems for now. When a governor receives praise for showing up, that’s all you need to know. But polls show Gibbons gaining on anointed Republican Brian Sandoval in the governor’s primary. Sandoval can hope Gibbons and Mike Montandon split the far-right vote, but remember: 48 percent of Nevadans voted for Gibbons in 2006, even if few seem willing to admit it now, and the whiff of scandal was pungent even then. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford wowed Nevada liberals— all three of them—when he tore into gaming for refusing to pony up $64 million to pay state regulatory expenses. Horsford seems headed for bigger things than the Legislature, so it’s good for him to throw red meat to the Democratic base. He also fought hard to limit the cuts, demonstrating he doesn’t want to tear apart the state. It almost made up for two problems:

• In responding to Gibbons’ plea to allow him to destroy state government, Horsford agreed with the governor that there would be no new taxes—and abdicated his political and governmental responsibility. First, even if you don’t think some industries can afford to pay more in taxes and should have to do so (How deep do you have to mine for the answer?), that sort of blanket statement is dangerous and counterproductive. Second, that’s Gibbons’ position. If you enter a negotiation, whether for a union contract or what you and your spouse want for dinner, you don’t start out at your opponent’s position. • Why should gaming be asked if it wants to pay taxes? No disrespect to gaming executives, who rightly object to other Nevada businesses getting away with fiscal murder, but individual constituents aren’t asked whether they can afford fees or salary cuts. When you ask gaming if, like Oliver Twist, you can have some more, it isn’t liberalism or conservatism. It looks more like toadyism. Oddly, though, liberals wound up moderately pleased—and thus likelier to pound the pavement for Democrats this year. Although Gibbons has made Nevada look like the equivalent of a crashtest dummy, he didn’t get to total the state. Liberal groups were properly thrilled that educational and welfare services absorbed less of a cut, even with Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio making noises about anti-tax zealots who actually think Nevadans overpay. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, not liberal so much as civil libertarian, praised lawmakers for rejecting Gibbons’ efforts to stick it to poorer schools (vouchers), discrimination victims (shuttering the Nevada Equal Rights Commission) and government unions (ending collective bargaining). Meanwhile, amid the celebrations that things could have been worse, things look worse. The 2011 Legislature may face a budget deficit that makes the Grand Canyon look like a thimble while also trying to reapportion itself. Tea partiers remain opposed to anything that doesn’t begin with “no.” For the zillionth time, anyone with brains is decrying Nevada’s tax structure and wants to fix it. Aloha, oy. Michael Green is a professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada and author of several books and articles on Nevada history and politics.

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Nightlife

Entertaining options for a week of nonstop fun and excitement.

Compiled by Melissa Arseniuk

SeveN NIghtS

Thur. 11 Spend 3/11 with 311 as the rap-ska-punk rockers bring their annual party to Las Vegas. This is the ultimate show for diehard fans and it’s expected to last about five hours. At Mandalay Bay Events Center. $59.50-$64.50, 7 p.m. March 11 is also the night of the first-ever Sonic Royalty party at Ghostbar, a new weekly event with different entertainment every month. Glitch Mob gets things going as the first band to hold court on the 55th floor. At the Palms. Doors at 9 p.m., locals ladies free, $10 for all others.

Mon. 15 The Neon Reverb music festival has come to a close but that doesn’t mean the music has to stop, so keep things going at Beauty Bar. While Dirty Shame Karaoke is not your momma’s karaoke, Beauty Bar is not your momma’s beauty salon, either—so make sure she stays home. 517 E. Fremont St., doors at 10 p.m., free.

Fri. 12 Melrose Place star Katie Cassidy is cashing in at The Bank—for charity. The Light Group wrote a big fat check for $15,000 and the actress is accepting it on behalf of underprivileged and education-deprived children in Malawi. Instead of Cassidy’s bottle service, all of the money will be used to build a library in the southeastern African nation. At Bellagio. Doors at 10:30 p.m., $30 for guys, $20 for girls.

Sat. 13 Sleep in because it’s going to be another late night at Tao. DJ Erick Morillo takes to the booth for yet another epic set. At the Venetian. Doors at 10 p.m., $50 for guys, $30 for girls, local ladies free. Meanwhile, Common is at Haze, hosting and performing at a very different but very fun party—and who knows, maybe he’ll bring his buff +1—tennis pro Serena Williams—with him. At Aria. Doors at 10:30 p.m., $40 for guys, $20 for girls. Another option: Everlast will be at Mandalay Bay for a daylong by the pool at Moorea Beach and they’re bringing B-Real of Cypress Hill with them. The event will feature an optional unlimited beer garden with more than 20 beers. Beach opens at 9 a.m., beer garden at noon, show at 8 p.m., $40 for concert only, $40-$60 for beer garden only, $100 for all-access beer, beach and concert pass.

Sun. 14 It’s been a long winter but it’s ﬁnally time to bust out that bikini or show off your six-pack: Pool season has arrived. Wet Republic opens on March 12, but since Sunday is “pool day” in Las Vegas, spare yourself the opening-day chaos and embrace the biggest trend in nightlife—daylife— without having to call in sick for work. At MGM Grand. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., $40 for guys, $20 for girls.

Tues. 16 Get into the St. Paddy’s Day spirit a little early and hit up one of the longest Guinnesssoaked Tuesday-night traditions in town. Grab your smartest friends and put all those useless facts you’ve been accumulating to work at McMullan’s weekly trivia night, which has been going strong since 2003. Winners get a $100 bar tab; losers get to pay for the next round. 4650 W. Tropicana Ave., trivia at 8 p.m., free.

Wed. 17 There is no shortage of Irish-themed parties (see page 56) but Lavo’s weekly Label Junkie party is going green this week, mixing models with Leprechauns. At the Palazzo. Doors at 10 p.m., $20 for guys, $10 for girls, locals free. Still, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t St. Patrick’s Day without a pint or two of Guinness, so why not grab a cold one (or seven) at Todd English P.U.B. at Crystals? You won’t have to worry about calling a cab (or worse yet, losing your buzz) afterward, since you can quickly and easily keep the party going at Eve. It will take you all of 10 seconds to swagger (or stagger) across the way, and the club’s industry night is always solid. While, no, they don’t have Guinness at Eve, they do have the next best thing to leprechauns: Jeff Beacher’s Oompa Loompas. Doors at 10:30 p.m., free for all industry and locals, $20 for girls and $30 for guys without local I.D.

March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 45

Nightlife

LAVO | the pALAzzO

Photography by Tony Tran

Upcoming march 13 | Tyra Bellholland’s 40Th BirThday march 14 | dJ Vice sundays march 16 | Femme FaTale Final Four TiP-oFF march 17 | laBel Junkie PresenTs lePrechauns and models

46 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Nightlife

Blue Vegas launch party | DouBle Down saloon

48 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Photography By Jesse Nabers

Nightlife

Haze | aria

Photography by Hew Burney

Upcoming March 13 | coMMon

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Nightlife

st. patrick’s seven Because no one should be thirsty on March 17. Compiled by Melissa Arseniuk

McFadden’s This pub’s annual “Five Days of Madness” gets into high gear bright and early—well, if you consider 9 a.m. “early”—on March 14 with a traditional Irish breakfast and more than enough Guinness and Jameson to wash it all down. The “Bloody Sunday” drink specials include 25-ounce mugs of draft for $10 and smaller, shamrock-hued cups o’brewskies for $4. And it wouldn’t be Bloody Sunday without a little U2, so the local version of Bono and the boys—Vegas U2— will entertain from 9 p.m. until midnight. As for the big day itself, $10 gets you in with a yard glass to ﬁll with Killian’s (or green mystery beer), or they’ll give you a free shot of Jameson, if you prefer. At the Rio.

Cabo Wabo Sammy Hagar’s spot puts a Mexican spin on the Irish holiday with “Greena Coladas” and Chocolate Irish Mochas at the daiquiri bar all night long. Standard St. Paddy’s Day specials are $5, including pints of green draft or Guinness and shots of Jameson or Baileys Irish Cream. Sport a kilt for more drink specials, or forget the booze and just focus on food, which will also be festive: All burritos and quesadillas will be made with green tortillas. In Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. Doors at 11 a.m., no cover.

McMullan’s Irish Pub With names like the Greenland Whaleﬁshers and Darby O’Gill & the Little People, the bands playing this St. Paddy’s party have to be seen to be appreciated. Things get off to a real early start, at 7 a.m., but bagpipers get to sleep in since they won’t start ’til noon. Other Irish entertainment follows indoors and out beginning at 1 p.m. and ending “whenever the party stops,” which may very well be sometime in April. 4650 W. Tropicana Ave.

O’Sheas Celebrate at the only Irish casino on the Strip as it kicks off a four-day block party. Peepshow starlet Holly Madison and her pint-size sidekick de jour, Lucky the Leprechaun, will get things started at noon with a round of beer pong (we know, we were hoping for body shots, too) and the entertainment will continue with performances by DJ Irish, Joshua Tree and Limey Bar. The Sin City Sinners will also perform, from 9 until 11 p.m. Blarney rock-bottom drink specials include $1 frozen Baileys, $3 Irish Car Bombs and $4 Guinness on tap. The party continues for three more days, from 2 p.m. until midnight on March 20. Noon-1 a.m. March 17, 2 p.m.-midnight March 18-20, free. 56 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Fadó’s Irish Pub St. Patrick’s Day gets started at 8 a.m. with “Kegs and Eggs,” followed by live music at 12 p.m. Practice your Irish Jig to the sounds of Finnegan’s Wake, the Birdies, the Cronies and the Junk. There’s a stout selection of beer on tap, including Guinness, Harp, Smithwicks and Kilkenny, and a ﬁne selection of Irish whiskeys, too. When it comes to festive pub grub, it’s hard to top Fadó’s freshly made corned beef and cabbage and Irish boxty. 9470 S. Eastern Ave. Free before 2 p.m., $15 after that.

Ghostbar Las Vegas’ best Irish bartender, John O’Donnell, hosts a night of beer and bagpipes at the Palms. JOD leaves his post behind the bar at N9NE Steakhouse and takes the night off to host a tribute to his homeland at Ghostbar. At the Palms, Doors at 8 p.m., free for local ladies, $10 for the ﬁrst two hours, $20 after 10 p.m. for all others.

Blondies Sports Bar and Grill This isn’t normally a local’s hangout—nor is it all that Irish, for that matter—but a highlighter party called Glow Green provides a good reason to brave the tourist crowd. This is an arts-and-crafts-meets-glow-bowling extravaganza, so leave your shamrock-colored suit at home and instead wear (inexpensive) white. Pay $20 cover and enjoy all-you-can-drink draft, then get ready to put your drunk-drawing skills to work when the black lights come on and the highlighters come out. Two suggestions: “Kiss Me I’m Irish” for you; “Kick Me I’m a Tourist” for them. In Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. Doors at 11 a.m., highlighter party at 9 p.m.

Still thirsty? Scan this barcode for a full list of St. Patrick’s Day parties, or visit weeklyseven.com/ stpatricksday

Nightlife

Profile

Open Season The gloves come off in the annual battle for pool-server jobs By Ainsley Love

60 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

been serving at the local pancake house back home since she was 18. She chokes over her words and says she’d be good at the job because she “works real well with others.” “Thank you for your time, ladies, we will be taking numbers 37 and 39,” the Simon Cowell of the pool party selection committee says. “The rest of you are free to go.” That’s how the first round in the battle for poolserving positions is fought. Annie and the other rejects quietly get dressed as Ashley and her BFF Crystal go to the judges table to say hello to the four jurors, whom they have known for five years. The second round comes later and that’s when the gloves really come off. Everyone who is invited back is either smoking hot or knows somebody who knows somebody (or both). It’s the Las Vegas version of American Idol: Competition is fierce, and hearts are broken as rhinestone-encrusted Blackberries receive callbacks and others do not. Crystal pouts and stares at her motionless phone when Ashley receives her call. They are at Golden Spoon, ready to toast the start of their summer with a round of bikini-friendly, low-calorie ice cream—but Crystal’s reason to celebrate never comes. Only the best of the best-looking get hired, and apparently Crystal enjoyed one too many calorie-loaded cinnamon dolce lattes in the off-season.

Shanna Kim Crane, 24 Cocktail server at XS

Hometown: Brea, Calif. What’s something most people don’t know about you? I’m half Vietnamese and I can speak and understand the language.

Who is your fictional hero?

Aladdin, simply because he makes it clear early on to his love, Jasmine, that it’s not about material things in life. It’s what makes up a person on the inside that matters.

What do you dislike more than anything? I hate being woken up by loud noises.

What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you? At the age of 16, my parents sent me to Europe and I became extremely homesick. My mother arranged for cards to be delivered to my aunt’s house to cheer me up. Those cards kept me smiling throughout my trip.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

I would change the locations of where we all live. I wish my whole family lived near each other so we could have more family gatherings and barbecues. Alas, when it comes to working at a pool, it is survival of the ﬁttest—or, in some cases, the skinniest. Yet nobody said making it in Vegas was going to be easy—and just like on American Idol, there is always next season—unless, that is, you’re over the age of 28. Then it’s game over. Ainsley Love works on the weekends and sleeps in during the week—but she writes about the life in nightlife, too, from inside the industry out.

What is the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to you? When I was a little girl, my brother gave me a piece of a spicy chili from a tree my parents grew in our yard. Needless to say, my mouth was on ﬁre! To this day, I can’t eat spicy food.

If you could go on a date with any celebrity, who would you take to dinner? That’s easy: Marilyn Monroe.

Crane photo by Danny Mahoney

Pool season in Las Vegas starts on Facebook: This just in—“Come try out for the hottest job in town, bring your résumé, your best swimwear and a head shot—oh and by the way, we are only accepting the first 100 people, so get here early!” Almost instantly, the Las Vegas Athletic Club parking lot gets tighter as girls rush around town getting spray-tanned, Botoxed and bleached. And then, before they know it, the big day is here. The line begins to form at 9 a.m., even though auditions for coveted “model/cocktail server” positions don’t begin until noon. Anxious girls dressed in their best business-casual-with-a-skanky-twist pass the time doing what girls do best. “I heard this year they are only hiring blondes,” one says. “Oh no, no, no,” the size-zero brunette three girls behind chimes in. “I know Rick—ya know, Rick as in the general manager here—and he said that they were looking for girls with a more natural look this year.” “Really?” the triple-D, bleached-blond knockout next to her asks. The name-dropping, one-upping and storytelling continue until the flood gates finally open. Then it is every woman for herself. The audition process is as methodical as it is degrading. Applicants are told to line up, 10 at a time, and strip down to our bikinis to be photographed. Hopefuls turn in résumés and head shots, then prepare to walk the runway. Yes, you read correctly: the runway. Apparently, to be a pool party cocktail waitress in Las Vegas you must be able to double as Heidi Klum. The seasoned pros strut their stuff down the catwalk as the clueless newbies like Annie from Wichita, Kan., watch in amazement. (No, you’re not in Kansas anymore, sweetheart.) “Girls, we need you to tell the panel what modeling and cocktailing experience you have, and please try to speak clearly into the microphone and look into the video camera while speaking,” the leader of the selection committee says. A shoo-in named Ashley confidently explains that she has six years’ cocktailing experience, two of which were at this very venue. She has done extensive print and promo work for Jack Daniels and Coors Light, too, and winks at her buddy the nightlife director before spinning one last time for the panel. Poor little Annie doesn’t have a chance. She reports that she has “no real modeling experience” but has

Nightlife

Cocktail Culture

The Scorpion Bowl, $18 At about 64 ounces, the Scorpion Bowl is the mother of all Las Vegas lounge drinks. The iconic and gigantic cocktail has been served to thirsty patrons-in-the-know at the Peppermill for nearly 38 years. While it’s not on the menu, bartender Denise DonovanForbes says the drink is the unwritten rule for late nights in the Fireside Lounge because it’s not just tasty, but can also satisfy up to six people. 2 ounces vodka 2 ounces rum 2 ounces brandy 2 scoops vanilla ice cream 2 cups orange juice (approx.) splash of grenadine

STory From The Bar

Combine all ingredients in a blender, adding enough orange juice to ﬁll (exact amount of OJ needed will depend on how generous you are with the ice cream and how big your blender is). Mix on medium-high speed for 15 seconds or until smooth, then serve family-style in a large bowl with several straws.

Ryan HugHes, baRtendeR at dos Caminos “A guy walked into a bar where I used to work and started passing out $100 bills to everyone. Twenty minutes later he passed out drunk, and when security arrived he complained everyone stole his money. As he was being escorted out he handed security a $100 bill and thanked him for a good time.” – As told to Melissa Arseniuk

The FireSide Lounge aT The PePPermiLL Fire, water and lots of neon make the Fireside Lounge stand out— but it’s the cocktails and the people who drink them that make this place really interesting. Tucked in the back of the Peppermill, the 24/7 destination is a kitschy melting pot, attracting everyone from longtime locals to tourists and celebrities. With low lighting, fake foliage and mirrored tiling galore, the room is the perfect balance of ’70s-style cheese and sex appeal—and you can’t get more Las Vegas than that.

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

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The NaTioNal Newsroom This week in the New York Observer

Iger: © Kirkland/Retna

The mouse That roared

las Vegas’ assassination Connection

Five years into the job, Disney’s Iger ﬁnds his voice

A brazen Dubai hit has a local angle. But what is Payoneer, and who exactly is Yuval Tal?

By Richard Siklos

By Max Abelson

Disney CEO Robert Iger spent March 7 rolling deep at the Oscars with his friend and biggest shareholder, Steve Jobs. If Iger seemed outwardly cool—and he almost always does—it had to be a tense night for him: Disney-owned ABC and Cablevision were locked in a contract standoff that threatened to prevent Cablevision subscribers from seeing the Oscars. Cablevision serves Long Island, where Iger was born and bred, and the looming blackout meant that his own parents and sister were among some 3 million viewers who wouldn’t be able to see the Oscar broadcast on WABC. A deal, of course, was ultimately struck, and the ABC feed was restored some 20 minutes into the show. It was quite a display of brinkmanship, and it’s hard not to conclude that Iger used the Oscars to exert maximum leverage. All in all, it was a good night for Iger: Up, the animated movie from Disney-owned Pixar, took home the Oscar for best animated film, and the ratings for the awards were the highest in five years (despite reviews that were mixed, at best). That same weekend, Tim Burton’s rendering of Alice in Wonderland for Disney recorded the biggest 3-D opening yet, nicely riding the coattails of Avatar and giving hope that the company’s slumping movie studio might have better days ahead. Iger’s approach has been a pragmatic, almost clinical lesson in how to run a media giant in the 21st century. He made big waves in Hollywood a few months ago by replacing Dick Cook, the longtime head of the Disney film studio, with Rich Ross, one of the executives responsible for the success of the Disney Channel. Less noticed has been the fact that, in all, half of the dozen people who reported to Iger a year ago now either have new roles or have left the company. He is in the process of selling off the library of Miramax, the indie-film arm of Disney that for years brought it Oscar accolades but little financial gain. He has grappled with theater owners over shortening the “window” in which DVDs are released after a movie debuts, which, in Alice’s case, involved defusing a threatened boycott of the film by U.K. exhibitors. Meanwhile, at a time when the downturn has rattled Disney’s theme-park business, a recent Bloomberg story described him as being on a “spending spree” for everything from new Disney cruise ships to the $4 billion he ponied up for Marvel Entertainment. The big picture on Iger is that he has a clear and increasingly restless view on how to keep Disney relevant in a world of fragmented media and disruptive technology—some of which comes straight from his friend Jobs. In the case of ABC, getting Cablevision to pay to carry the signal lays the foundation for other cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner Cable to start paying for something that has traditionally been free—and in Disney’s case is complicated by the fact that the company already extracts healthy tolls from cable operators for other channels, particularly ESPN. But getting paid directly

On Feb. 23, a sturdy and completely bald Israeli named Yuval Tal was in Las Vegas at the Rio, where the nightly entertainment includes the Chippendales and Penn & Teller. Tal, behind a microphone in a blazer and open-collar shirt, was one of ﬁve international visionaries, as the brochure for the 2010 Prepaid Expo called them, who had been gathered together for an afternoon panel talk on the state of prepaid cards around the world. The conference, with a keynote address a day earlier from Bill Clinton, who got a standing ovation for a speech titled “Embracing Our Common Humanity,” cost $1,795 per person. Two days later, Tal would be at the center of one of the globe’s juiciest international intrigues. Papers from Des Moines, Iowa, to London were reporting that his New York-based ﬁrm, Payoneer—which offers prepaid cards, mostly as a way for employers to compensate foreign workers without checks and wire transfers— had been linked to this year’s cinematically brash Hamas assassination in Dubai. In the open view of security cameras, wearing vaudeville-level wigs and mustaches, a group of at least 27 agents plotted the death of the Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was drugged and smothered with a pillow in his hotel room on Jan. 19. Dubai police said the suspects used more than a dozen Payoneer debit cards for planes and hotels. Its chief declared he was “99 percent” certain that the assassins were from Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. Payoneer says it is cooperating with authorities. The chronicle of the assassins has unfolded thrillingly, like something out of le Carré: One reportedly slipped into the United States the day after al-Mabhouh was found, another is said to have entered on Valentine’s Day. But the story of Payoneer and its founder, a warm man despite a Special Forces background, is even pulpier.

Disney CEO Robert Iger and Willow Bay attend the Oscars on March 7.

for ABC will help ABC’s struggling TV station business and, hopefully, help defer future rounds of layoffs at ABC News. In person, Iger is a casual and intellectually curious man who considers himself a custodian of Walt Disney’s legacy. His emphasis has been to build Disney-branded “franchises” that cut across all of its businesses and can be replicated around the globe. To his frustration, the bulk of those have come not from Disney’s own film studio but from Pixar and the Disney Channel. (Hence Ross’ appointment.) Briefly a weatherman before he joined ABC Sports 36 years ago, Iger was named to succeed Michael Eisner atop Disney five years ago this week. His first day on the job, he told the board he wanted to buy Jobs’ Pixar. In each year since, Disney has outperformed the S&P 500 and nearly all of its peers. At $64 billion in market cap, Disney is the biggest media construct on the planet, giving it a heft that Iger is not averse to using—even if his own family has to miss a little song and dance.

Continued on pg 71 March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven

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The National Newsroom

The rookies and the Nookie Roethlisberger sex story latest example of TMZ’s expansion into sports coverage By Felix Gillette

Port authority punts pair of developers from Freedom Tower By Eliot Brown

American life continues to shrink, there’s no shortage of new-media outlets scrambling to grab a piece of the fallen American athlete. Arianna Hufﬁngton now has a sports vertical alongside those for politics and media. On March 9, the top three headlines read “Tiger Woods Spotted Kissing Wife”; “Georgia QB Arrested at Bar”; and “Tiger Mistress Beauty Pageant: See Who’s Favored to Win.” Deadspin, one of the original no-access, no-bias sports blogs, is now so well established it provides a recurring news segment for MSNBC. In the coming weeks, NBC legal analyst Dan Abrams will launch his contribution to the ﬁeld, a site called SportsGrid. Levin, for one, thinks that the increased competition Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has become a big news story for TMZ Sports. from digital media outlets will selling its principles and fairness (its soul, in other words) be good for everyone. “I don’t think it’s an issue of in exchange for clicks and cash.” people having to choose us over whoever,” Levin said. Levin brushed aside the criticism. TMZ Sports wasn’t “People who are into sports will go to 10 sites. It’s not a out to destroy athletes or sports journalism. “The last zero-sum game.” thing I want to do is make this contentious and us Which will hardly stop some longtime sports jouragainst them,” Levin said. “Now if a Ben Roethlisberger nalists from wringing their hands. Recently, Dan Le case comes around, we’re a news operation, we’re going Batard, a regular ESPN contributor, wrote a column to cover it. But that doesn’t mean that we’re one-dimenfor The Miami Herald on the growing generation gap between old and new sports media, noting that “because sional and that’s the only thing we’re looking for. It isn’t. TMZ Sports is not going to be all about Tiger Woods survival is the strongest instinct, in humans and in and Ben Roethlisberger, by any means.” business, sports journalism is being forced to evolve into

The race to sell off a portion of the Freedom Tower—ofﬁcially, One World Trade Center—has kicked into a new gear. The Port Authority, the New York–New Jersey–controlled bureaucracy that is developing the tower and shopping around an ownership stake, late last month dropped two developers vying to take a piece of the 1,776-foot tower, according to people familiar with the process. Out of the running: Steven Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust and Brookﬁeld Properties, run by CEO Ric Clark. That leaves four developers standing: Mort Zuckerman, Douglas Durst, Stephen Ross and Gerald Hines, who respectively

control Boston Properties, the Durst Organization, the Related Companies and Texas-based Hines Interests. The skyscraper is on the rise in Lower Manhattan, with a hulk of steel currently more than 200 feet above ground. With symbolism and security guiding its design and purpose, it is surely a money drain for the Port Authority, at least in the short run, and costs more than $3 billion, twice the price of the 2,716-foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where labor is cheaper. Thus the agency, searching for the developers with brokerage Cushman Wakeﬁeld, wants to bring in some money—it’s looking for an investment

of about $100 million to take a piece of equity—and to install a well-known developer as the public face of the tower. Of course, this is not the ﬁrst time the agency has tried to sell off a piece of the tower. Back during the Spitzer administration, Ross was in advanced discussions to put up capital and claim the tower for Related Companies as part of a different ﬁnancing arrangement, according to people familiar with the discussions at the time. That plan fell apart, and two years later, here we are again. In a statement, the Port Authority said it is “encouraged by the strong private sector interest” in the tower.

Roethlisberger: © Erik Kabik/Retna Digital

Not long ago, Harvey Levin, founder of the gossip website TMZ, watched Barbara Walters on Fox News, explaining why she was giving up her Oscars special after 29 years. Hollywood had changed, Walters said. There were fewer big stars. Legendary actors had given way to reality-show phonies. Katharine Hepburn was out. Octomom was in. Bestowing celebrity on those who hadn’t really earned it, she suggested, was growing increasingly tiresome. Levin could relate. Bestowing infamy on those who hadn’t really earned their fame in the ﬁrst place was no picnic either. These days in Hollywood, nobodies were on the rise. In sports, meanwhile, guys earned their stardom. There was no faking it. And when they faltered, well, the drama was that much richer for having come after so much hard work. Take Ben Roethlisberger, for instance. Before TMZ broke the news on March 5, that the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback had been accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in a nightclub bathroom in Georgia— and before news of the allegations ricocheted through every corner of the sports media—the 28-year-old kid had hustled his way out of Lima, Ohio, played himself into the ﬁrst round of the NFL Draft, fought for Rookie of the Year honors and battled for a Super Bowl ring. Can you imagine jeopardizing all that for one night of club-hopping in some beer-funnel town? By March 8, TMZ Sports had published 16 Roethlisberger items. “You can’t become famous in the world of sports the way you can in the world of celebrity by just hanging out in a club or dabbling in a reality show,” Levin told The Observer. “You have to achieve something. You have to be really good. That makes them more interesting to me.” Levin announced recently that TMZ Sports would be expanding its coverage. He’s in good company. These days, while traditional coverage of various aspects of

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Payoneer Continued from page 69

Payoneer was a good idea. It makes customized, prepaid, private-label Debit MasterCards for companies, which can use them to pay their employees and freelancers. According to its site, Payoneer keeps a 3.5 percent commission, plus fees like a $5 first-time charge. It also has a travel affiliate that works with groups like Birthright Israel, whose Web site says that its participants are required to use Payoneer. “The money is uploaded to the card. There’s no need for paper, for checks, for stamps, for envelopes,” Tal said in an October 2008 interview with a Web video production site called 1938 Media, which Payoneer has sponsored. “Why stand in line in the Russian winter to cash a check? When you can actually, from your basement, actually continue to do business?” Russia is indeed one of the biggest sources of traffic to the card’s website. So are shakier Central Asia nations such as Krgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, according to statistics from Alexa. “If you are going to go after a niche in the payments industry, international payments is about as big a niche as you can get,” the blog TechCrunch wrote after Tal’s company finished a multimillion-dollar round of venture capital fund-raising two years ago. “But it can also be a dangerous game in the post-9/11 world.” For its cards, Payoneer uses Belize’s quiet Choice Bank Limited and the Midwest’s MetaBank, which as of last year was facing several lawsuits. It used the First Bank of Delaware until early last year, soon after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation charged it with deceptive marketing practices. “We decided to cut back in a number of programs. His was just one of them,” First Bank CEO Alonzo Primus said. Meta, titled like Pynchon, was the bank for most of the Dubai cards. “We have launched our own review of the matter to further assure ourselves that Meta followed proper procedures in accordance with all bank and regulatory requirements,” it said in a statement. Payoneer would not comment . “I don’t think that we can meet,” Tal wrote, “but I’ll truly try to see that we chat.” He didn’t respond to further e-mails. A visit this week to the 15th floor of 410 Park Avenue, the company’s address, revealed that it was a virtual office that handles mail and call screening for hundreds of firms. Payoneer’s real Manhattan headquarters is a fifth-floor suite on Broadway near Columbus Circle, decorated by large

blowups of prepaid cards. Its site says the firm also has a research-and-development center in Tel Aviv. It’s not clear who handles compliance for the company. Last year’s Prepaid Expo listed Cherie Hamblin, a certified anti–money-laundering specialist, as its chief compliance officer. At this year’s event, she was on the panel of five judges that gave Payoneer a 2010 Paybefore Award for best business-toemployee program. Las Vegas was nice. Tal went out for coffee with the British attorney Robert Courtneidge, a fellow panel member he’d met at the previous year’s Florida conference. “He comes across as a very nice individual. Very trustworthy,” Courtneidge said. “You meet with him and feel comfortable right away—family man.” They both had pregnant colleagues along with them, who chatted. The businessmen talked about maybe doing business together in Europe. “There’s a lot of money in the prepaid industry, a lot of people looking with interest at how to capitalize on the growth of the prepaid phenomenon,” said Tony Craddock, the head of an industry organization called the Global Prepaid Exchange, also a panelist. “A lot of people making money and a lot of people who want to make more.” In 2007, the research firm Mercator Advisory Group said that around $11.3 billion in American wages had been distributed on prepaid cards the previous year. Mercator estimates that last year’s sum was $20.6 billion, and that in 2012 the number will be $33.1 billion. “He’s a well-respected business professional, he’s got a very clever business model, he’s doing something, as far as anything can be in the world, unique,” Craddock said. “He’s very well backed, and he’s very well referenced. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

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Alexandria Symonds contributed additional reporting for this story.

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The National Newsroom

Beware! 1

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NOTE: No need to be alarmed for a few days yet, but the fact that there are exactly 15 theme answers in this puzzle is no accident. So to speak. ACROSS 1 Egg ___ 5 Virginie, par exemple 9 Teapot cover 13 Carpet meas. 17 Says “for her and I,” e.g. 18 Bear’s bedroom 19 Perfect report card 21 Flick featuring Flicka, perhaps 22 City near San Diego 24 BCS champs of 2010 26 With 110 Across, an oldies band 27 Jed’s ﬁnd 28 The slim picture 30 What a 3-0 game lacks 31 Sound of a slug 32 Achieve normal speed 35 Use a scythe 37 Track info 38 El ___ 39 Come together? 42 “Who ___?” (phone query) 45 Nora portrayer 49 University founder Stanford 51 OH pro 53 Sneeze need 55 Bradley et al. 57 “That’s ___!”

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131 It’s pointless 132 Nicollette on “Desperate Housewives” 133 River of souls 134 Inherited item 135 Frees (oneself of) 136 Chip movements? DOWN

1 Thomas Hart Benton’s Missouri birthplace 2 Flower for Nero Wolfe 3 Rockies feature 4 Govt. check issuer 5 Commercial cow 6 Out-of-control drop 7 Medical attention, e.g. 8 Rover rewards 9 Tucson sights 10 Like biremes 11 The Congo, before 12 Popeye verb 13 Was a wallﬂower 14 Popular ear-cleaner 15 Tokyo’s old name 16 Kid-lit sleuth 20 Turf intro 21 At stores everywhere 23 With 74 Down, a type of milk 25 “Life of Riley” character, Digger ___ 29 Out of 33 Covert org., once 34 Regina’s region: abbr. 36 Rice dish, variantly 39 “Ay ___!”

40 He designed the dream sequence in Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” 41 It’s an OK place 43 However, for short 44 Type of hawk or hunting dog 46 “Think about it” 47 ’70s pres. monogram 48 Security org. with bombers 50 Actress Sandra 51 Common excuse 52 Beijing nanny 54 Singer Sumac 56 A ___ omission 59 Capture 61 Long-time 62 Alley target 63 Fed. agcy. since 1949 66 Engine levels 67 Hearing-aid company 70 I-15, for ex. 72 Gum amount 74 See 23 Down 75 Spray of a sort 76 Ex-quarterback Flutie 77 Fair 79 Boot bottom 81 Stimpy’s pal 83 Yokohama drama 84 Crude outfit: abbr. 85 Crafty 86 Samson type 87 That guy 89 Swiss canton 93 Yemen neighbor 94 Wearing beach shoes 97 Passes, as a law 98 Bill of Baghdad 100 “Waterloo” singers 102 Supplemental, as an input: abbr. 104 “Splash” star’s first name 106 Players’ list 108 Common confession 109 Dam relatives 111 Wouk’s minesweeper (with “the”) 112 “As You Like It” forest 113 “Touched by an Angel” star 114 Kahoolawe and others 115 Columbus sch. 116 Waldo Pepper and others 117 Word of warning 118 Jetson who attends Orbit High 124 Reject 125 Halloween buy 127 Beginning to cure? 128 Soldier with an Enfield rifle

!!! VOLUME 16 IS HERE !!! To order Merl’s crossword books, visit www.sunday crosswords.com. 3/11/2010 © M. Reagle

Marines make a charge in The Paciﬁc.

Welcome to the Jungle The Pacific: Hanks, Spielberg and Goetzman’s World War II miniseries gets under way for HBO By Sara Vilkomerson You really can’t quibble with The Pacific’s pedigree: The epic 10-part miniseries, which will air on consecutive Sunday evenings on HBO beginning March 15, comes from Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the same producing team that did the similarly themed 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. This thing is big-event television, and if you somehow haven’t picked up on that fact from the bombardment of marketing from the good people at HBO, the string-laden Han Zimmer score that continually asserts itself will happily remind you. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it delivers. Based on intertwining true stories of Marines fighting in World War II, The Pacific, in its scope, sight, and sound, is at all times breathtakingly impressive. It opens in December 1941, sometime after Pearl Harbor, with a group of young troops preparing to ship out. “Hitler is not going to be our job,” says a gruff lieutenant colonel. “Not till they can’t whip him without us. The Pacific will be our theater of war.” Indeed. Before you know it, we’ve jumped ahead eight months, and the 1st Marine Division has landed on Guadalcanal for what turns into some truly harrowing and historic combat that gets a lot worse before it gets better. The biggest problem I encountered with the first two installments (each about an hour long) was trying to distinguish which of our heroes are which—in those pith helmets, and in the long grass, rain, mud and amid multi-explosions, it’s hard! Also tough: In evening battle, things get incredibly dark—and I don’t mean atmospherically, though it is that, too. But you may find yourself straining to see what exactly is happening in the midst of rat-a-tat-tat shootouts and chaotic foxholes (which may be precisely what these filmmakers had in mind). But by the third episode, which takes place in Melbourne), things have settled and we get a better sense of the principals. The Pacific is based, in part, on the books Helmet for My Pillow (I Books, 2001) by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed (Presidio Press, 2007) by Eugene Sledge—both authors are main characters. Leckie (a fine James Badge Dale) in particular seems to be at the center of the collective band of brothers. Do not make the mistake I made in looking up the actors on IMDB.com, as you might inadvertently find out who doesn’t make it alive to episodes 6 through 10. For all of its star power behind the scenes, the actors onscreen are mostly unknown, and it’s easy to get sucked into the grim realism and always-heartbreaking truth about what wins a war.

Answers found on page 74 72 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

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The National Newsroom

Personal Finance

Paying for cell phone services as you go By Kathy Kristof, Tribune Media Services

New York Times gets PR victory over rival Wall Street Journal spokesman ﬂees to the competition, signaling a change in strategy

Can you save money by dumping your standard cell phone plan for a phone that allows you to pay as you go? If you’re the right kind of user—and are careful about the plan you choose—you probably can. “They’re perfect for people who need a phone for emergencies but don’t want to text message or use the Internet a lot,” said Jeff Kagan, a Georgia-based telecommunications analyst. “You can save a lot.” Even heavy users can save money with the right plan, said Firas Naji, director of national sales for PlatinumTel Wireless. But you probably can’t be too picky about your phone because many prepaid plans are using last year’s models. To understand who can and can’t beneﬁt from these deals, you need to know how they differ from a standard cell phone plan. With a standard plan, you sign a contract in which you agree to maintain your service for a set amount of time— most commonly two years—at a set price. In exchange, you usually get unlimited calling and receive a phone free or at a deeply discounted price. You are effectively paying for the phone over time through monthly service fees that are slightly padded to account for the phone’s cost. If you cancel before the contract term is up, you’ll pay a fee that can range from $50 to $400, depending on the plan, when you canceled and the phone you bought. With a prepaid plan, everything is a la carte. First you buy your own phone upfront, making sure it’s compatible with your chosen provider’s service. Then you can buy a month’s worth of phone connection services, a set number of minutes (that will last for a month or longer), Internet access, text messaging or a bundle of these services. You can choose to be billed by the minute/text or choose a plan that gives you a set number of days (usually

Solution to Beware! by Merl Reagle

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30) for a set rate. If you don’t like the service, you don’t have to continue after your minutes are used up. That’s particularly attractive for people who need basic service on the cheap, perhaps because they’re unemployed and looking for work, Naji said. PlatinumTel, for example, has a limited service plan for as little as $10 a month. Add in $40 or so for a basic phone and you’re spending $160 for the year. The cheapest traditional plan advertised by Verizon Wireless and AT&T run $39.99 a month, or roughly $480 a year. But you get their phone for free. Prepaid plans aren’t always cheaper, though. And they sometimes don’t offer all the services you want. Some don’t provide access to e-mail; others restrict Web browsing and require you to pay as much as 50 cents for getting a single text message, whether you wanted it or not. And if you’re not careful about when minutes expire, you could end up paying far more on a per-call basis for prepaid than you’d ever pay for traditional cell service. “The big issue is that you have to look carefully at how you use your phone—the number of calls you make, the type of services you need—and then search around,” said Ken McEldowney, executive director of Consumer Action, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. Things to consider include: • Minutes: With a traditional cell phone plan, you pay a fortune for any minute that you go over the packaged amount. With a prepaid plan, you pay a fortune if you don’t use all the minutes you paid for. Why? In most cases, your minutes will expire after a set period of time. So if you pay for 100 minutes and only use 50, you’ve paid 50 percent too much. Minutes are cheaper in bulk. But estimate your needs carefully before you buy to get the best deal. • Service: Check the coverage area of any provider you’re considering to make sure you can get calls in the locations you frequent the most, Naji said. Also ﬁnd out if you’ll be charged a different amount for local calls versus long distance. Some carriers charge the same no matter who, when or where you’re calling domestically; others stagger their rates based on the time and location of the call, and sometimes on whether you’re calling somebody who is in the same phone network. • Activation fees: Some prepaid plans include an activation fee, usually $25 to $30. If you allow your minutes to expire without renewing for a few months, you might have to pay another activation fee to get service revived. • Text messages: Typical plans will give you unlimited texting for about $10. With a limited plan you could pay through the nose for each text over the allotted amount. • Internet: Accustomed to checking e-mail or websites from your phone? Cull prepaid plans carefully because some don’t offer Web access, or severely restrict it. The challenge of buying a la carte is paying attention to the details, McEldowney said. “You’ve really got to read the ﬁne print.” Kathy Kristof's column is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. She welcomes comments and suggestions but regrets that she cannot respond to each one. E-mail her at kathykristof24@gmail.com.

By John Koblin On March 9, The New York Times ﬁlled a sevenmonth vacancy and announced the hiring of a new spokesman. Bob Christie, a seven-year veteran as spokesman for The Wall Street Journal, will be the Times Company’s senior vice president of corporate communications starting March 22. In the increasingly visible war between The Times and The Journal, score a point for The Times! Christie’s defection comes in the midst of a bitter war between the two papers, as The Journal prepares a New York section to launch on April 12. But it may be a score in a more meaningful way for Arthur Sulzberger Jr. In recent years, as revenues have eroded and bad press has piled on, the paper’s PR strategy, which was led by Catherine Mathis, then the communications director, hasn’t been entirely clear. The Times has always seemed most comfortable with a posture of digniﬁed silence when a bit of bad press came at it. After all, at the end of the day, The New York Times is The New York Times. But in an age of partisan screaming and endless sniping on the Web, keeping to itself hasn’t done much to shield The Times’ brand name. In 2008, after the paper published its famously opaque Vicki Iseman–John McCain story, the paper stayed quiet. And for that, The Times was roundly ridiculed on the Web and on television. The narrative seemed established: The Times blew it. Bill Keller later told his staff he regretted sitting on his hands. And yet, nothing seemed to change. In 2009, after The Atlantic and Vanity Fair each wrote fairly blistering commentaries on the State of The Times, the paper responded, however awkwardly, with responses in the Letters to the Editor section in each magazine. The Times felt compelled to dignify the stories with a response after the fact, but still, letters to James Bennett and Graydon Carter don’t appear to be the most brass-knuckled tactic in defending the paper’s good name. When The Times opened its doors and let the world take a look at its news operation last year, it was in an interview with Jason Jones of The Daily Show. The appearance was a widely panned debacle. Two months later, Mathis left The Times for a job at Standard & Poor’s. Will Christie be able to bring a coherent pressrelations policy to The Times? He said he didn’t want to comment on his new job until he gets there, but there are signals that he may be able to get things under control. Christie is a veteran of rough press—he oversaw The Journal’s communications during the Rupert Murdoch takeover, and its aftermath—and he was well liked within The Journal newsroom. The same could not be said of Mathis, whom reporters and editors seemed to know in passing, if at all.

74 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

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Arts & Entertainment

A Crowd of Small Adventures plays at The Bunkhouse during September’s Neon Reverb. Photo by Spencer Burton

Music

Bright lights, big music festival Neon Reverb presents more bands and venues than ever before

By Jarret Keene

The twice-yearly Las Vegas music festival known as Neon Reverb has done it again, growing even bigger, badder, meaner. Last September, co-organizer James Woodbridge said he couldn’t imagine the event expanding unless more venues opened up. Well, a rotten economy hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm for live music apparently, since there are now 12 venues on board (up from nine last year), including four all-ages clubs, with new establishments Yayo Taco and Area 702 skate park. If you choose one week to hit the town in search of an awesome live act, this is the week to do it. The latest (and fourth) Neon Reverb installment offers a whopping 116 bands over ﬁve nights. It’s not all about sheer numbers, there’s also an emphasis on genreblending and diversity, with two hip-hop nights and a Hispanic rock lineup. The genre-blending includes a March 13 CD-release party featuring rappers HighDro and Shamroc at the Aruba, while three bands from

Mexico kick up the diversity a notch. Forget the usual categories. What is the average Vegas hipster going to make of Spindrift, a psychedelic Spaghetti Western heavy rock outfit that somehow brings together composer Ennio Morricone, The Doors, Velvet Underground, and gothic rockers Fields of the Nephilim? Chances are Las Vegans will be smitten March 13, when the L.A. band sets its sights on the aptly Western-themed Bunkhouse. There’s even more extreme music being offered at Boomers, a bar located just behind Palace Station off Rancho Drive. There you’ll be hit by everything from the crushing arena-rock of Slow to Surface (March 11), whose song “Shake the Rafters” will do just that, to the gothic and melodic post-punk(abilly) of Devilcar (March 13), whose profile is starting to heat up substantially. On top of all this, The Box Office in the Downtown Arts District will be organizing what it promises will be a “high-quality” battle of the bands contest on March 12. Continued on page 79 March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 77

Arts & Entertainment

Music

Into the Neon (Reverb) Las Vegas bands to catch during this week’s music festival By Jarret Keene

For fans of Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Vietnam Cowboy singer/ guitarist Bobby Martinez made waves in town with his psyche-rock outﬁt The Pandas a few years back. After the band collapsed, he moved into a house high up on Sunrise Mountain, stripped things down to an acoustic guitar and harmonica, and moved in a folkier direction. These days, Martinez’s amps are cranked to 11, and he’s ready to unleash what he calls “cosmic desert country-rock.” Gypsy Den, Thursday, March 11. For fans of Pedro the Lion, Sun Kil Moon: Minor Suns beneﬁt from having three atmospheric guitarists who rely on layering their chords and notes (instead of all playing the same stupid power chord). The result is an indie-rock lover’s walloping dream, from the stealthy drama of “Give It a Try,” in which singer Ryan McIlvaine whisper-croons a heartbroken commitment “to ride it out like I always do.” Textured, romantic, and stirring. Boomers, Saturday, March 13.

For fans of The Bronx, Black Flag: Straight out of Boulder City, the bad boys of Dangerboner are fully erect and vacuumpumped to smash eardrums with no-frills brand of punk ’n’ roll. When you hear a song title like “Operation Bloodstorm,” do any terrifying images come to mind? Well, those images are exactly what you should expect to happen at their show. In other words, this band makes your band sound like a basket full of soft, ﬂuffy kittens. Boomers, Friday, March 12.

For fans of Interpol, The Killers: Close To Modern consists of four Mexican-American dudes in their 20s who pay homage to two British bands: Joy Division and The Smiths. The band filters these influences through the artificial prism of life in Vegas, so that in a song like “Sedentary Lesson,” you get appropriate lyrics like “Sketch your life right on the outside.” No other group captures the essence of Sin City alienation and phoniness. Gypsy Den, Saturday, March 13.

For fans of Muse, Animal Collective: The music of Underwater Ally bubbles like black-lit, sugar-scented bongwater at dawn. Songs such as “From Indochina to Africa” and “A Day Beside the Sun” possess such a uniquely majestic sensibility you don’t even need drugs to feel high. Somewhere amid the arty ambience of Tangerine Dream and the visceral pop of Pink Floyd, this Vegas quartet launches listeners into orbit with melodic, pop-oriented style that deﬁes easy categorization. Bunkhouse, Saturday, March 13.

For fans of Radiohead, Led Zeppelin: Sure, Wall Street Vampire earns the award for Most Topical Band Name. Still, this alt-music trio also knows how to conjure the sound of the decade when punk, metal and pop—a.k.a. grunge—dominated rock radio. All those soaring arena anthems Smashing Pumpkins and Alice in Chains forgot to actually write? Well, Vampire includes them all in their satisfyingly varied set list of moody rockers. Bunkhouse, Thursday, March 11.

Dangerboner photo by Adam Shane

Counter-clockwise from top: Vietnam Cowboy, Dangerboner, Underwater Ally, Close To Modern, Minor Suns.

Everyone has a favorite big-name local band playing Neon Reverb: Afghan Raiders (Beauty Bar, March 13) and The Skooners (Bunkhouse, March 14), for instance. But there are also a half-dozen local acts that are either unjustiﬁably obscure or have been keeping a low-proﬁle. These bands are now primed to blow away anyone in earshot. Admission varies, but prices are very affordable. Purchase passes and get more info at neonreverb.com.

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Bright Lights, Big Festival Continued from page 77

(Bands are still being confirmed as of this writing.) That same evening, there’s a live graffiti-on-canvas art show taking place at Gypsy Den with four bands (including punk act Majority Lost) providing accompaniment. The diversity of pop and rock genres—while mixing in a bit of visual art—is in keeping with the festival’s established philosophy of inclusion. “It’s about bringing together as many different bands, national and local, as possible while keeping the quality high and raising the bar over last fall’s event,” co-organizer Thirry Harlin says. “Because the festival is larger, we need more momentum as far as getting the word out and attracting people in larger numbers,” Woodbridge says. Much of that momentum has been provided by the hour-long Friday night Neon Reverb Radio program on KUNV 91.5-FM, spearheaded by Vegas scenester Donald Hickey with some spiritual guidance courtesy of Killers bassist Mark Stoermer. Having debuted last November, the radio show seems to be drawing listeners eager to find out which bands are coming to Vegas—not just for Neon Reverb, but throughout the year. Woodbridge

says the show hopes to expand to two hours as soon as they work out when Hickey can be on the air and if they can finance an increase in staff. It’s not all roses. The whole Neon Reverb shuttle from venue to venue didn’t work out last time. And the outdoor stage on Fremont Street never materialized. Still, who needs a shuttle when you can ride an accelerating beer buzz in the same club all night and enjoy multiple bands? It’s as good a way as any to ride the Reverb. And if this month’s event does well, Harlin says he’d like to add a film event. Everything hinges on whether Neon Reverb can secure a corporate sponsor for the year’s second installment. Don’t worry, though. Festival organizers have no intention of going soft with a bigger budget. “We’re still very much a D.I.Y. [do it yourself] effort,” Woodbridge insists. “We’re not flying out bands here and making them any $10,000 guarantees, OK.” Of course, he’s been wrong about Neon Reverb’s growth spurts before. For more info on Neon Reverb, including ticket prices and show times, visit neonreverb.com. Local music-lover Jarret Keene is our music columnist.

Neon Reverb Survival Guide You’ve got a lot of live—and very loud—music ahead of you. And until Neon Reverb has its own iPhone app, you’re strongly advised to tear out this page and keep it handy. CHECKLIST: We suggest hitting CVS for the store’s own 6 Pair Value Pack of Ultra Soft Silicone Earplugs ($4). You can’t beat the built-in “antimicrobial protection,” either. In some bars, you’ll need it. Dry lips in a dive bar are always a concern, especially if you’re looking for a cute indie-rocker to snog, so make sure to grab some ChapStick ($2) at the register. Ladies might consider cherry or tropical; dudes should stick with “invigorating Green tea mint.” Don’t forget to stuff a generic bottled water ($1) in your pants or purse for walking between clubs. You’re in the desert, remember? ETIQUETTE: Nothing wrong with vigorous headbanging, dancing and jumping around. Just don’t be a douche and start moshing, crowd-surﬁng or doing hardcore breakdowns in a way that hurts others, OK? Especially ladies. They will cut you. Tip your bartenders generously so you can get stronger drinks and faster service. Don’t drink too much. It annoys people when you start yelling for “Freebird.” Plus, a cab from downtown to your Henderson abode will cost you big time (though still cheaper than a DUI). AFTERMATH: The Stake Out (4800 S. Maryland Parkway) across from UNLV makes a great Bloody Mary and is an ideal place to sober up. Even closer to the Neon Reverb action is Tiffany’s Café (1700 Las Vegas Blvd. South) on the Strip at Oakey Boulevard. Order the trout and eggs at 5 a.m. and you won’t regret it—as long as you’ve stopped drinking by then! Whatever you do, stay out of the gentleman’s clubs. Let’s keep it an affordable evening of kick@ss live music, right? March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 79

Stage get on the Boat

The Long Shadow of a Giant High Chair

Matt Goss croons his way to Caesars Palace By mericia González

Yearning for something more than dodging green-beer-swilling tourists this St. Patrick’s Day? The Black Mountain Institute at UNLV offers something completely different: I Could Read the Sky. The event revolves around BMI fellow Timothy O’Grady (see page 11) reading selections from his novel of the same name (Random House, 1997). It’s the story of a musical Irishman who migrates to England to find work, but finds love instead. The multimedia event is accentuated by photos from The New Yorker photographer Steve Pyke, and punctuated with music by the Celtic fiddle and guitar duo of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, and the singing of Sean-nós artist Aine Meenaghan.

“Some songs will really get people to let go and there will be tears on their faces but they’ll still be listening to the music and letting that emotion out.” Not the quote you’d expect from a former boy bander, but Matt Goss is chasing a little bit of the unexpected with his new show, Matt Goss Live From Caesars Palace. “People always expect something that’s very polite,” he says. “And it’s actually very loud and it has a lot of edge.” Of course, if you’re expecting a radical departure from his four-month run at the Palms, don’t. Both Goss and producer Robin Antin want to keep the essence of their past show. The biggest difference seems to be the move to Cleopatra’s Barge, which they are remodeling to fit the retro Vegas act. matt Goss Think more reds and golds, as well as a newly closedin space. But not too many changes. “We’re really happy to be in that space and we respect the boat,” Antin says. Of course, it makes sense for a man who channels Frank Sinatra to preserve the past. He’ll perform a mix of old standards and contemporary hits (including originals from his new album, Gossy) with a nine-piece band and the “Dirty Virgin” dancers. “They aren’t the Pussycat Dolls,” Antin says of the differences between the showgirls and the other act she produces. “They’re much more about enhancing and creating energy around Matt as opposed to performing for themselves. Kind of like [when] Dean Martin had his Golddiggers.” In the end, visiting the Gossy Room is about the whole experience. “I want people to know that they can go out for a beautiful night out and stay once I finish my show and continue to drink and flirt,” Goss says. Indeed, he may take his own advice: “I have my own little booth and maybe have a scotch on the rocks. The tux stays on, but the bow tie comes undone.”

7 p.m. March 17, free, UNLV Beam Music Center’s Doc Rando Recital Hall, blackmountaininstitute.org.

Opens 10 p.m. March 12, $40, 866-1400

a Q&a with comedy icon Lilly tomlin before her Vegas visit By Jim Rose In the 40 years from when she ﬁrst appeared on the revolutionary TV show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to when she performed at the MGM Grand last fall, Lily Tomlin has made quite an impression on stage, television and the big screen. Dubbed the “New Queen of Comedy” in a Time cover story in 1977, Tomlin has also collaborated on books with life partner Jane Wagner and fought for liberal political causes. The 70-yearold dynamo, who returns to MGM Grand March 11-17, never phones in a performance, unless she’s playing her character Ernestine, of course. That said, it’s time to pick up the phone and interview the lady whose many characters have permeated the pop culture switchboard. Tell me about your past experiences performing in Vegas. If you look back over my history, in ’81 I did a [television] special called Lily Sold Out. And [the premise was that] I went to Vegas for the money, and I had to convince myself this time that I was going for the right reasons. I did an act that would rival a Cher or AnnMargret at the time. What are some of the artistically risky things you’ve done? Oh God, I don’t know. Well, you really were the ﬁrst person to hit my wheelhouse with

Lily Tomlin as Ernestine

cross-dressing female to male. That was risky. It didn’t seem risky at the time; it seemed interesting. [When] we created the ﬁrst Vegas show, I had to do a Vegas headliner like Tommy Velour. One thing I heard you say 20 years ago has stuck in my head: “Someday a bean-bag chair will be an antique.” Yes, that was so long ago. A lot of stuff you do, it’s almost trying to underscore your own humanity. You want the audience to validate you. How much fun is it to do comedy and in every moment you know if the people are getting it and are connecting with you? It’s that validation of your humanity from both sides of the stage. What do you plan for the future? Well, I guess more of the same. There are a couple of little things I’d love to do. Things

that have happened or experiences that I know would make hilarious and entertaining short ﬁlms. Things that my brother and I did as kids. I think I have enough of this rich background as a child growing up in inner-city Detroit with my family. And in the summers my brother and I were sent off to Kentucky to stay on the farm with my aunts and uncles. What ever happened to that giant high chair from Laugh-In days? I have that. In fact, I brought it to Vegas. I will have it in the show this time, too. Have you ever seen Dolly Parton’s breasts? [Laughs] No, I haven’t. The tops of them, but not in their entirety. I mean, we’ve all seen the tops of them. It takes a performer to know one, and Las Vegan Jim Rose (of the Jim Rose Circus) knows many.

THe SmaRTeST ST. PaTRiCk’S evenT in Town?

82 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Reading

Almost Freaky Las Vegas provides a serene scene of escape in The Melting Season By Meredith McGhan Tommy Madison is a small-penised, effeminate boy-man who just can’t take the fact that his wife can’t feel him inside her. He snaps, and she flees rural Nebraska with their truck and savings, headed for … you guessed it: Sin City. With a premise like that, you’d expect The Melting Season (Riverhead, 2010)—Jami Attenberg’s third and latest novel—to be full of quirk, color and action. However, the book is surprisingly low-key. Heroine Catherine Madison, an innocent farm wife in her mid-20s, is aimless and her thoughts predictable. When Catherine arrives in Las Vegas, she decides to stay, despite her impressions: “Las Vegas looked like nonsense to me, a cartoon version of a real town.” Well, duh. Attenberg’s descriptions ring true in a superficial way—the traffic-choked Strip, the expensive hotels, the plasticity. In a recent interview, she admitted she had only given the city a cursory glance: “I haven’t spent a ton of time [in Las Vegas],” Attenberg told Elle.com’s Natasha Clark on Jan. 22. “But you kind of only really need to go once to get the picture. ... It’s a holy American creation where everybody can converge in one place and have this one very specific experience.” It’s sad that Attenberg felt that a once-over of our city was enough to create a novel set almost entirely here. Her characters stay in a $500-plus Strip hotel, so they never venture beyond it. To call it holy is to romanticize it, and to say that everyone here is having the same “very specific experience” is to condescend to the unique multitudes.

The closest Attenberg comes to mining human complexity comes when Catherine hooks up with a couple of tribute artists, with whom she shares her biggest childhood secret amid Las Vegas’ phony ostentation. But the novel stops short of the full power, resonance and Gothic grotesquerie it could have had, if Attenberg had not missed so many opportunities to create color and suspense. For example, despite the fact that Catherine is on the run, no one is chasing her. Catherine remains a bit of an enigma, too. She has a disconcerting habit of never using contractions, which makes her sound robotic. Is she trying to sound more intellectual than her rural family? We never find out. Although she endures a post-separation depression, there is always something arid and distant about her. Attenberg keeps Catherine detached by using a matter-of-fact, journalistic first-person voice, the sort of style one learns in academic writing workshops. Catherine’s family members seem even less formed, making it difficult to care about them—even the diminutive Tommy, with his horrifyingly sad-funny situation. The most intriguing characters are the impersonators and the gay couple who own the diner in Catherine’s hometown. Scenes with these characters contain the ghost of Carson McCullers’ unforgettable freaks, but never fulfill their potential. Each character is dealing with something that makes them feel sexually freakish, and our own strange Las Vegas is the setting, but the safe, detached writing style pulls every punch it could have made.

The LIbrarIan Loves ... Selected by Jeanne Goodrich, executive director for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. Laura Rider’s Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton (Grand Central Publishing, 2009) Hilarious at first (Laura Rider decides she’s done sleeping with her husband Charlie, despite his bedroom prowess), this latest novel by Jane Hamilton turns a bit dark as Laura’s plan to fulfill her goal of becoming a romance novelist by engineering an online flirtation between Charlie and local public radio host Jenna Faroli goes a little too far … or maybe way too far. Just as goofy, charming Charlie proves to be a bit deeper than he first appears, so does this short comic novel. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 83

Arts & Entertainment

Movies Movie of Mass Destruction

Green Zone, a Superman epic masquerading as a political exposé

By Rex Reed Green Zone is one of those crypto-technical thrillers I usually have to consult a 10-year-old child to explain. Riding on the bare-bottomed Oscar backside of The Hurt Locker, nothing could be simpler. It’s a deeply flawed fictionalization of events widely believed to be true (but unproven) about the political corruption of the U.S. military, in backroom collusion with the alleged lies and greed of the Bush administration, that plunged us into an illegal war in Iraq. Shot by Barry Ackroyd, the same cinematographer who filmed The Hurt Locker, and using the same camera techniques, this movie looks like outtakes from a better film. Paul Greengrass, who turned the Jason Bourne series into sharp but incoherent political hash, gets the horror and confusion of disoriented kids meeting death in Baghdad, but Kathryn Bigelow got there first. Iraq, 2003. Matt Damon, looking like a high school baseball player, plays Roy Miller, a junior crusader and patriotic chief warrant officer dispatched to search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction yelling, “This is a disaster!” This is not a movie about good guys vs. bad guys. Damon is the single good

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guy. Everyone else is a two-faced villain working for an evil, despicable Pentagon that reports to an evil, despotic (and brain-dead) commander-in-chief. (At times, the whole thing borders on satire.) It’s a case of David and Goliath as Damon gets slammed by rival factions: Brendan Gleeson as a veteran CIA operative who agrees the military is “rolling doughnuts,” and a Pentagon special intelligence damage-control power freak (miscast, baby-faced Greg Kinnear). Not to mention a reporter (Amy Ryan) who spreads false information (reportedly based on New York Times correspondent Judith Miller). Damon predicts (accurately, it turned out) that ignoring the Iraqi Army will lead to civil war. Nobody listens. Predictable rogue vengeance ensues. This movie should have been made five years ago, but the impact now is numb. The convoluted script that spouts laughable clichés (“Democracy is messy!”) is by Brian Helgeland, who has written great movies (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential) and real stinkers (Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, Payback). His reference here is Imperial Life in the Emerald City (Knopf, 2006), a political best-seller by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, national editor at the Washington Post who was the Baghdad bureau chief in 2003. That controversial book named names, accusing the Arab military of trying to impose a brutal order akin to dictatorship, ruled by American administrator L. Paul Bremer, whose name has been changed in the film to the Clark Poundstone character played by Kinnear. In a disclaimer, Universal Pictures now wants everyone to accept Green Zone as a work of Helgeland’s sole imagination—an indication that the original author eschews any association with the flick. All blame is now assigned to fictional characters and no reason is ever made for why the U.S. was so hell-bent on attacking Iraq. The question of idealism vs. greed and military arrogance is a familiar

Matt Damon

one that arrives too late to make much difference, and—more important—it’s still hypothetical. I hate to say it, because I was counting on a more powerful movie, but this ﬁlm—based on nothing more tenable than gossip, rumors and conjecture—suffers from the aroma of comic-strip heroism in the guise of liberal propaganda. Unfortunately, the whole thing rings of déjà vu. Greengrass goes for grainy, dizzying, handheld cameras to make you feel you are smack in the middle of Hell, but Steven Spielberg did it better in Saving Private Ryan. Damon works hard to make his heroic character truthful,

but the follow-the-dots screenplay turns everyone into war-scarred clichés. All told, an unconvincing indictment of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and an anemic re-hash of half-truths offers nothing new. With no real third act, an unpopular war remains just another pointless conﬂict to be judged by future history books. Without the courage of their convictions or the guts to name names, the people who made Green Zone leave you with a feeling of been there, done that. It doesn’t help that we know there is no ending. We’re still there, where the weapons of mass destruction turned out to be … ourselves.

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Arts & Entertainment

Movies

Malice in Wonderland Tim Burton loses the plot with his adaptation of two Lewis Carroll classics By Christopher Rosen It might be time for Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to start thinking about seeing other people. Alice in Wonderland, their seventh film together, is so thoroughly soul-deadening and laborious that the prospect of an eighth collaboration feels like the sword of Damocles. Based on Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, this latest bigscreen version of the seminal classics finds a 19-yearold Alice (Mia Wasikowska) heading down the rabbit hole once again, but with no memory of her prior visit; those looking for an origin story will have to settle for the 1951 animated version. Once in Wonderland—or, as it is called by the locals, Underland—Alice must defeat the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and return the benevolent White Queen (Anne Hathaway) to her rightful throne. Perhaps because the plot can basically fit on the inside of a matchbook, Burton decided that an over-reliance on bells and whistles was necessary. He bathes Alice in Wonderland in so much distracting 3-D computer animation and ethereal landscapes that both James Cameron and Peter Jackson would recoil in disgust. Consider Alice the unwanted spawn of Avatar and The Lovely Bones. There are giant flying birds, growling, dog-like creatures and even something called the Jabberwocky, a monster right out of The Lord of the Rings. (It’s even voiced by Saruman himself, Christopher

Lee.) Those hoping to be transported to a new world will have to settle for a hodgepodge of old ones. To wit: Alice rides on the back of a furry beast—in a style reminiscent of The Neverending Story—not once, not twice, but thrice. Alice in Wonderland has all of Burton’s hallmarks—the silhouetted and broken tree branches, the haunting Danny Elfman score, the pasty heroine (Wasikowska has an inside track on playing the lead in The Claire Danes Story)—but the film comes off like something directed by a novice who spent one too many afternoons in the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Not one moment during the 108-minute film feels authentic. Neither does Depp’s central performance as the Mad Hatter. While Wasikowska is fine enough, her Alice is written as a straight woman; she’s required to do nothing more than react to the green-screen creations surrounding her. Depp is tasked with the heavy lifting, but, festooned in an orange fright wig and some very

Johnny Depp

uncomfortable-looking contact lenses, he can’t even be bothered to keep his accent straight (it vacillates between an effete lisp and an angry Scottish brogue). When he was donning black eyeliner and doing an elaborate Keith Richards impression in Pirates of the Caribbean, you could sense the fun Depp was having while nailing a tricky performance. In Alice in Wonderland, though, he acts like even being on set was a chore. It wouldn’t have been a surprise to see him break the fourth wall, take the blue pill and return home to Paris. Frankly, with how much the ﬁlm drags, you’ll probably wish he had. Christopher Rosen is a New York City-based entertainment writer.

Short reviewS

shutter island (R) ★★★★✩

For his 45th ﬁlm, Martin Scorsese crafts a gorgeously stylized psychological thriller. As U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels, Leonardo DiCaprio and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on a foggy isle to investigate a patient’s disappearance from a private prison hospital for the criminally insane. This Cold War-era mystery exponentially folds back on itself during its shocking third act. A truly engrossing picture. 86 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

By Cole Smithey

Brooklyn’s Finest (R) ★★★✩✩

Director Antoine Fuqua returns to the gritty cop drama genre that made him a household name in 2001 with Training Day. This time around, East Brooklyn’s is home to three cops (Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle) whose ethical compasses are way off—in ways we’ve seen before. Fuqua massages the script’s obvious clichés with a sense of personal attachment to his characters that makes you believe in them.

The Crazies (R) ★★★✩✩

George A. Romero produced this update of his 1973 satirical horror ﬂick. A spree of murder-suicides disrupts small-town bliss. Satellite-view imagery hints at unseen military ofﬁcials orchestrating an attack. Director Breck Eisner compresses the suspense into tightly edited pieces that balance thematic import with shocks of gory confrontation. While not Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies hits the zombie on the head.

Cop out (R) ★✩✩✩✩

Perhaps after the miserable action/comedy ﬂop that is Cop Out, Hollywood will send director Kevin Smith back to his marginal indie fare. With a bare-bones plot that’s hardly worth repeating, police partners (Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) run around Brooklyn shooting, killing and car-chasing like a couple of clowns. You’ll yawn, you’ll squirm and you’ll wait impatiently for this interminable piece of trash to ﬁnally end.

America Ferrera and Lance Gross

Our Family Wedding (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa’s version of interracial marriage is about as much fun as a trip to the dentist. America Ferrera plays Latin hottie Lucia Ramirez to Lance Gross’ immaculate picture of moneyed African-American perfection. The wedding-bound couple head home to L.A. to break the news to their unprepared, and only somewhat racist patriarchs, played by Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia. Apparently unfamiliar with the thin-ice romantic comedy genre upon which he skates, the filmmaker relies on unmotivated slapstick set pieces that perpetually fizzle out. Famuyiwa has put together a competent cast whose nearly developed characters speak lines like, “Once you go black, your credit goes bad.” Such stereotypical attitudes are flaunted with a graceless pedestrian sensibility that conflicts with the upperclass trappings that both households wear with throwaway assurance. Whitaker’s Brad Boyd is a super suave radio announcer who has a special place in his heart for his attorney and longtime pal Angela (Regina King), who helped raise his son Lance. But neither Whitaker nor King have the comic chops to incite more than a momentary chuckle here and there. The elephant in the room is Carlos Mencia, whose popular television show Mind of Mencia proved his brilliant sense of race-inspired physical comedy. As the patriarch of Lucia’s family, Mencia is a family man with a strong sense of tradition and just enough humility to make you like him. While the rest of the cast seem under-directed, Mencia anchors his scenes with droll timing that sporadically brings the film’s would-be humorous tone up to pitch. Still, Mencia

never gets to let rip the way he consistently did on his television show. You can’t help but wonder if the film would have been better had Mencia taken a shot at doctoring the script. The talented Anjelah Johnson is also squandered. As Lucia’s tomboy sister Izzy, Johnson emits an undercurrent of lesbian languor that the director fails to explore. She works at her dad’s tow-truck shop and has a habit of stealing scenes from their periphery. Izzy is the one character who seems fully formed, and as such commands an exclusive brand of audience curiosity that keeps you wanting to see her interact more. When Izzy gets shoehorned into the promise of a straight relationship, it feels like the filmmaker is squeezing a square peg into a round hole. Our Family Wedding wants to show how two racially divergent families can open up to one another’s culture via the union of their romantically committed offspring. The closest the film comes to achieving its elusive goal is during a softball game where athletic enjoyment supersedes prejudice. It’s also the one time in the film where intellectual and physical humor work together in a balance of right and left brain equality. The film’s mantra, “Our marriage, their wedding,” establishes the agreedupon parameters of the proceedings. What it misses thematically is how that support system will function after the last wedding party balloon has popped. Ideally, Our Family Wedding would be the kind of romantic comedy that a Korean guy could take his Arab fiancée to see so they could laugh and imagine how their untraditional union could last. Unfortunately, this isn’t that movie. Cole Smithey is the world’s smartest film critic.

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March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 87

Gadgets & Tech

Apps for a night on the town By Eric Benderoff

“Do you have any raisins? No? Then how about a date?” Thanks to the iPhone in my pocket, I’ve got a million of these jokes. (It’s good that I’m happily married— technology hasn’t made pick-up lines any better.) If you have an iPhone and are on your way out for a big night, you might want to make Apple’s iTunes App Store your ﬁrst stop. Just like XS on Saturday night, the App Store is packed—with nightliferelated apps, that is. And just like the time-consuming and often disappointing dating game, you will probably experience a few duds before ﬁnding the one that’s right for you. The Apps Store lists pick-up line apps alphabetically, like a directory of plumbers in the Yellow Pages: “A+ Pickup Lines Free,” “Amazing Free Pickup Lines,” “Awesome Pickup Lines” and so on. There’s even one called “Ninja Pickup Lines,” which features a man’s deep voice that says things such as,

“Let’s go back to my place and you can help me practice my aim.” This Ninja app isn’t topping my list of recommendations, obviously—but even if it delivered conversation-starting gold, it would be of little use, since I could barely hear the voice in a quiet room. You would be hard-pressed to hear it in a wine bar, never mind a crowded nightclub—unless you go for the always-sexy Bluetooth-in-the-ear look, that is. Bad lines aside, an iPhone is handy when it comes to a night on the town. There are apps to ﬁnd bars (BeerCompass), to help pair food with wine (Wisconsin Cheese Cupid), for checking if you’ve had too much to drink (BAC Monitor)—even to ﬁnd the nearest public restroom (Whizzer by Lunatic Fringe Product Design LLC, $1). There are mixology apps for mixing up impressive cocktails at home, too—in case one of those pick-up lines actually worked.

ThirsTy? imBiBE ThEsE Apps:

Yelp (Yelp Inc., free). No matter where you are, this app—a descendant of the popular user-review site yelp.com—will ﬁnd a bar close by. Yelp built its business on what everyday folks think about bars and restaurants, so it’s not surprising that its app is better at incorporating user reviews than the others on this list. This is app is indispensable, serving both dedicated bar-hoppers and casual weekend pub-crawlers. ine Snob (Brian Weisenthal, $2.99). This app is for serious wine W connoisseurs who collect, catalog and know what wine to drink with dinner long before the meal is served. You can add tasting notes about the wines in your collection, get food pairing suggestions and search your wines (or those in the developer’s database) by type, bottle price, grape varietals and even region. AC Monitor (Greg Kubacki, $1). This app monitors your blood- alB cohol level by keeping track of what you drink, one drink at a time—all you have to do is push the button each time you order a round and it does the rest. It also keeps a running countdown of the approximate time it will take until you sober up using the Widmark Formula, which calculates your blood alcohol level using your weight, gender and perceived metabolic rate. Frankly, I wouldn’t rely on this to determine whether or not I should drive, but if you’re disciplined enough to remember to input each drink as you consume them, it probably wouldn’t hurt. Still, the general rule is simple: Don’t drink and drive. And never trust your life to a cell phone that can’t take you through CityCenter without dropping your calls. 88 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Wisconsin Cheese Cupid (Shine Advertising Co., free). What does cheese have to do with beer or wine? You wouldn’t ask that question if you were from Wisconsin. This is one of my favorite apps because it pairs beer, wine and cocktails with the right type of cheese. Like brown ale? Try it with some nutty and slightly sweet Edam cheese. Ending a fine meal with a glass of port? Impress and explain how earthy flavors of Camembert or Brie complement Portuguese desert wine. BeerCompass (Ultra MF, $1). This app does just what the name implies: It finds beer. It’s a little cheesy, with two lovely looking ladies (I like to refer to them as my personal beer angels) who greet you when you open the app. Touch the screen of your phone and the app’s compass will engage the built-in GPS and point to nearby taverns. It will also link to maps for more precise directions and includes bar phone numbers so you can call ahead and make sure they have your favorite lager on tap. Mixologist: Drink Recipes (Digital Outcrop, LLC, $1). Can you recite 7,900 different cocktail recipes? If your favorite bartender can, he’s probably using Mixologist. Whether it’s gin, bourbon, scotch or another spirit altogether, this app will offer plenty of ideas for keeping the party at your place. A great feature is the “liquor cabinet,” which allows you to input the booze you have on hand and this app will suggest a cocktail accordingly. Still, there’s no guarantee that a martini made from Bailey’s Irish Cream, DeKuyper Island Blue Pucker and month-old Thunderbird will taste any good. Beer Pong Flick (Robert Balian, free). Embrace your inner college kid and let your iPhone reconnect you with a game of beer pong. The inexplicably popular drinking game is now a social iPhone app, allowing you to play with former frat brothers and friends from coast to coast, strangers at the other end of the bar or against a ‘bot’ to hone your beer-drinking skills. My tip: Practice first. You’re older now; losing and drinking are both far more painful these days. Gallagher’s Beer Guide (Rich Gallagher, $1). Tired of drinking bottle after bottle of Bud at the local brewpub? Gallagher’s provides mouthwatering descriptions of common and hard-to-find beers. It can help you decide on what pint to order, too, in case you’re indecisive or don’t appreciate the difference between lager and pilsner. What’s more, it also has a function that determines what type of beer drinker you are. You may currently consider yourself an ale drinker but with Gallagher as a guide, you may learn that stout is actually the pint that’s right for you. DrunkdialNO! (Explore Fun Inc., $1). Save yourself from the walk of shame! This app will hide dangerous contacts from you—you know the ones; the ones you tend to want to call after a few cocktails. You can program the app to hide potential drunk-dials from you for a night or an entire weekend, depending on the intensity of your bender. Better, it will hide your boss’s number, too, in case you have a tendency of providing superiors with unsolicited performance evaluations whenever happy hour runs into overtime. Psychic Bar Trick (IntroWizard LLC, free). Despite being shut down twice already, you’re determined to pick up the blonde at the end of the bar. Well, Psychic Bar Trick just may be your best and last shot. Here’s how it works: You ask cutie pie to think of a number, and the app helps your iPhone guess what it is—assuming blondie isn’t hand-gesturing “1,” that is. Will it work? Probably not—but it’s still better than whispering, “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together...” Chicago-based technolog y columnist Eric Benderoff writes about consumer electronics and runs BendableMedia.com, an editorial services firm. He frequently discusses tech trends and new gadgets on various national radio and TV programs. Follow him on Twitter @ericbendy. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 89

Dining

A Mall of Riches

Our food critic digs up a treasure of ethnic restaurants— in a little suburban shopping plaza, of all places

Lemongrass (below) and a bowl of its signature comfort food, pho. Photography by Anthony Mair

By Max Jacobson

Nothing shouts “foodie” like a place where you can have Lebanese, Cuban, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese eats and not have to leave the parking lot. This place is Colonnade Square, at Eastern Avenue and Pebble Road. It’s anchored by a cinema and has a few other restaurants, too, including the very good Roadrunner and the not-so-good Round Table Pizza. But it’s the ethnic collection that’s the real treasure here. The weekend brunch buffet at Ali Baba (688-4182), our city’s most authentic Lebanese restaurant, is a must-stop. It’s a well-decorated room with a bountiful spread of cooked dishes and stews. A recent visit yielded a spinach

pine-nut casserole, aromatic rice and chicken, lemony roast chicken and at least a dozen other home-style dishes. Zatar, a condiment made from sesame seeds and thyme, sits on every table—dip that hot pita wedge in olive oil and sprinkle some on. There are other places than Chinatown for that pho or boba drink ﬁx. Lemongrass Café (4631300), which occupies a chromed freestanding building that used to be a 1950s-style diner, features the Vietnamese soup, which is rice noodles in a rich beef broth topped with various cuts of beef and topped with herbs. It is pure comfort food—a full meal in a bowl. Meantime, the goi cuon (shrimp, pork and veggies in fresh, not-deepContinued on page 92 March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 91

Dining

Diner’s Notebook Ethnic restaurants Continued from page 91

The Palm market (top and below) has everything a Middle Eastern chef could want. If fresh crab is what you need, the Asian Seafood Market (above) is nearby.

fried-eggroll skins) are a healthful and satisfying treat. For the satyr in you, there is the $24.95 bo bay mon (seven courses of beef). It’s a feast for two. In between these two restaurants, at the west end of the mall, is the Asian Seafood Market (586-3000), a Filipino grocery store that sells adobong (garlicky peanuts in plastic cups), calamansi juice (an addictive citrus fruit drink) and whole fresh ﬁsh that the kitchen will fry up at no charge. It also has a steam table that sells hot entrées and steamed rice in plastic takeout containers; chicken and pork adobo; lumpia (Filipino egg rolls stuffed with vegetables, pork or chicken); and funky stuff such as dinuguan, a chocolatey-looking stew composed of organ meats. The one downside? You’ll have to eat in the car, or wait until you get home. Fans of downtown’s popular Florida Café will be pleased to know that the mall’s Havana Grill (9329310) has the same food and ownership as its sister ship. There is a Cuban sandwich to beat the band, hot entrées such as oven-roasted Cuban-style leg of pork, and the famous tres leches cake for dessert, all served in a lively Caribbean atmosphere. From 4-9 p.m. daily, there are two-for-one drinks and half-price appetizers at the bar. Jun’s (566-5867) is a small Korean café with cooking that I prefer to that which is done in bigger, gaudier places adjacent to Chinatown. All food is prepared in the kitchen; there are no braziers at tables here. Chun (egg-battered beef), kalbi (sesame oil and garlic marinated grilled short rib), and stone pot bi bim bap (rice topped with vegetables, meat and a cooked egg that you mix with spicy red-bean jam) are just a few of the standouts. Finally, if you want to prepare Middle Eastern dishes at home, Palm Mediterranean Market & Deli (932-5133) is a great place to buy the Levantine ﬂat bread, lavash, delicious imported pistachios and the indispensable ingredient known as pomegranate molasses. If you have to ask, you don’t need it.

A towering breakthrough, Naked City sandwiches and lunching in Greenland By Max Jacobson The rides aren’t the biggest thrill atop the Stratosphere these days. It’s actually the food. Not long after the property was acquired by the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, the Top of the World restaurant employed two extreme talents: chefs Claude Gaty and Rick Giffen. The views from the spectacular revolving restaurant still affords the best view of the Las Vegas Valley. It takes a full 80 minutes to make a complete revolution, and the effect is dizzying. Hold that martini. But now you should come with an appetite, too. The food is a revelation: crab cakes with green papaya salad, a deconstructed shrimp cocktail, foie gras tater tots (no kidding) with a piquant homemade ketchup, and amazing Wagyu beef with a horseradish crust. The fact is, with a view like this, these boys could probably get away with grilled cheese if they wanted. The accomplished, high-end cuisine is a surprise— and a real bonus. Reservations are a must: 380-7711. Meanwhile, this area of the Strip (a.k.a. “Naked City”) has other draws. I’m always game for a cocktail at the Old Vegas legend Dino’s, and in the same parking lot, two guys from Buffalo have opened Naked City Sandwich Shop, at 1516 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Everything here—the Angus chili, the salt and caraway rolls called Kimmelweck, the excellent corned beef—is made from scratch. One of the best sandwiches is the Naked Veggie, with sweet red bell pepper, zesty Poblano pepper and a mushroom, onion, squash stuffing. The place opens at 10 a.m. weekdays and noon weekends. Downtown finally has a great sandwich shop. Bravo! Finally, Greenland Market, the city’s premier Korean market (6850 Spring Mountain Road), has a food court with some great Korean dishes, such as kalbi (sesame oil marinated grilled short ribs), cold noodle soup, meat dumplings and the tasty side dishes known as panchán. After I had the recent privilege of interviewing the celebrity chef Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and our own Bouchon at the Venetian, we went to Greenland Market together to experience it. Chef Keller ate everything with a curious, analytical eye. He especially enjoyed the spicy cold buckwheat noodles in a ruddy broth, and the kalbi. Don’t look for kalbi at the French Laundry anytime soon. The interview will air later this month on KNPR’s State of Nevada. Hungry, yet? Follow Max Jacobson’s latest epicurean observations, reviews and tips at foodwinekitchen.com.

92 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

Dining

Dishing

BOA Burger at BOA Steakhouse

Miso Eggplant Dengaku at Sushi Roku

A popular lunch item in the earthy steak house is a juicy eight-ounce patty composed of American Kobe, 40-day dry-aged New York strip and short rib, which is basted in foie gras butter. It is served on a brioche bun with lettuce, tomato, Camembert cheese, fried-onion strings and aioli. The included side of crispy fries balances the tenderness and juiciness of the burger. $18, Forum Shops at Caesars, 733-7373.

An absolute favorite dish of ours is enjoyed with a remarkable close-up view of the Strip’s colorful lights. This hot garden appetizer melts in your mouth and is so delicious it will make you want to incorporate eggplant into more of your meals. Plump pieces of fried eggplant are sautéed with sweet miso and garnished with toasted sesame seeds. This modern-style Japanese restaurant, with its amazing service, is the perfect place to dine with a large group. $10, Forum Shops at Caesars, 733-7373.

Creole Grilled Rib-eye and Grits at Rosemary’s

Moroccan-Style Chicken Wings at Vintner Grill

When you come to Michael and Wendy Jordan’s restaurant, you feel like you are visiting close family. And this dish—Michael’s favorite—is the perfect complement to that atmosphere. The prime rib-eye is grilled with Southern Creole seasoning and served with Anson Mills Carolina Quick grits and Rosemary’s homemade steak sauce. The crystal red onion crust gives the rib-eye spice and crunch. $40, 8125 W. Sahara Ave., 869-2251.

The chic, sophisticated hot spot in Summerlin now offers a lounge menu of great cuisine, beers and wine, with each item less than $10. This dish is our favorite ﬁnd (so far). The grilled meaty wings have a smoky ﬂavor that blends nicely with the spicy sweetness of the dried apricot and cinnamon glaze. The lounge menu is available 3-6 p.m. daily and 9:30 p.m. to closing on Thursdays, when DJ Jenna spins contemporary house music. $6, 10100 W. Charleston Blvd., 214-5590.

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Dining

Profile

Seven Things She Can’t Live Without

A Fresh Start

Dunkin, her dog. I don’t have any family here in Vegas, but he keeps me company cuddling on the couch or out on Lake Mead. He’s as diverse as I am. Passport. I love traveling and without my passport I’m not going anywhere!

How Las Vegas helped turn StripSteak bartender Amanda Gager into one of mixology’s rising stars

Snowboard. Being out on the mountain in the snow clears my head and lets me enjoy the freedom of the open air and the beautiful country God has created for us.

By Patrick Moulin Amanda Gager works with her favorite spirit, bourbon. Photo by Anthony Mair

Amanda Gager knew she had a flair for bartending. It just took her awhile to figure out exactly what that meant. The New Jersey native was tending bar in Atlantic City about seven years ago when she met the Flair Devils, a group of Las Vegas-based bartenders whose mission was to entertain as much as they poured. She was intrigued with the fad enough to go through training in various flair techniques, which she then practiced in bars along the Jersey shore. But it took a trip Las Vegas (in 2004) for a flair competition to teach her that although she enjoyed the style she didn’t care much for the substance of her bartending. She was immediately enamored of the cocktail culture that was blossoming here. “Las Vegas was the place for me,” she says. “I decided that I was going to become a world-class female bartender.” It took about five years—and about as many jobs—to figure out how to get there. The breakthrough happened when she was helping open T-Bones at the Red Rock Resort and she had a meeting with mixologist Jeffery Blake. “He got me thinking about cocktails,” she says. “He was using fresh fruit and fresh juices, and new higher-end liquors and liqueurs. I realized that one of the reasons I liked bartending when I first started was that it was kinda

State of the Cocktail What are some of the trendy ingredients that are being used? Gin is making a resurrection in the cocktail scene here in Vegas. During Prohibition, gin was our nation’s spirit until vodka showed up. I think people are getting bored of vodka, though, and are looking for something new to tantalize their taste buds.

98 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

like a chemistry thing. Pour a little bit of this in, a little bit of that in, shake it, stir it, serve it to a guest and they’re really happy.” Her path to enlightenment included a 12-week course at Southern Wine and Spirits, where she was mentored by such mixology greats as Bobby Gleason and Francesco Lafranconi. Today, drinks she’s invented at StripSteak, such as the luscious, bourbon-based Honey Love, have put the 30-year-old mixologist on the map. She has numerous awards to her credit, including America’s Top Bartender (awarded by Absolute Vodka and the Web network LXTV) and the Las Vegas Rising Star Mixologist for Starchefs.com. “My goal now in bartending would be to maintain the quality level of cocktails that are going out, to encourage people to try great cocktails,” she says. “To make them fresh using fresh ingredients and high-quality spirits.” Beyond that, she’s not sure, except that she wants to keep mixing things up in her life—whether it’s behind the bar or not. “I feel that people get in a comfortable state in their lives where they don’t want to move,” she says. “I don’t ever want to be too comfortable where life is just going on and on. … I’ve gotten to a certain point in my bartending where I’m comfortable with it and I need to grow. I need to explore and I need to move forward.”

Blackberry. It lets me Google anything, anytime, anywhere. Bourbon. My favorite spirit. Sweet or spicy, mellow or bold—there’s a bourbon for every occasion. iPod. While at the gym, setting up the bar or hopping on a plane, the wide range of music on my iPod keeps me going and puts a kick in my step. My Journal. As much as I am constantly on the go, I do like to take time to write about my adventures, remember funny stories or vent about the day’s events.

Gager talks about the trends shaping the industry Are there any new methods in cocktail making? Any old techniques that are being revitalized? Molecular mixology is an interesting and creative mode of making cocktails. By using chemicals and gases, one has endless creative possibilities. I like the classic approaches to cocktails, though. Stirring, shaking and muddling have endless possibilities as well. Classic cocktails are classics for a reason—the ingredients, the methods and the presentations—and no one can argue with that!

What trends are dead? What need to be? The Vegas cocktail scene is still different from the rest of the country’s cocktail scene. Tourists still want their sickeningly sweet strawberry daiquiris in yards or guitars, but I wonder if they have any idea the headache they’re going to wake up with because of the sugar and crap alcohol used to make it? Sure, if you drink enough alcohol, you’ll wake up with a hangover, but why not drink something that actually tastes good, using great spirits, to help enjoy your vacation!

What do you think is in the future? People are ﬁnally understanding what it is to use fresh ingredients. Fresh fruits, garnishes, juices—not the stuff out of the bottle that’s been sitting in the liquor room for two years. They just make a better cocktail. Also, everyone wants the newest product or ingredient. Anything new will be popular for its 15 minutes of fame. I think the question is, what’s going to stick around and what trends will become classics. Oh what a debate that will be!

Travel

Getting there (and around)

From its people to its grapes, Santa Cruz is a different kind of winery getaway By Geraldine Campbell The wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains— more than 70 of them—are producing some of the best wines in the world. Just 30 miles south of San Francisco, the area, with its mix of surfers, artists and hippies peddling organic groceries, could not feel more different from its cousins to the north in Napa. And its wineries, tucked away down small and windy roads are, perhaps, more thrilling because of their remoteness—and because of the nature of the land: winegrowers produce distinct pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay varietals from low-yielding vineyards on small plots of land, giving the wines intense ﬂavors and aromas. Many wineries are only open on Saturdays and Sundays, making Santa Cruz an ideal weekend jaunt. Here’s our recommended itinerary: FRIDAY Check into the Dream Inn, where retro guestrooms have views of the Monterey Bay and there’s free morning yoga on the pool deck. Save the sunset for another night and head straight to Sones Cellars, a small-production mom-and-pop winery whose fruit-forward petit syrahs are nearly impossible to ﬁnd outside county lines (sonescellars.com). Down the street, stop by Silver Mountain Vineyards’ new tasting room to try former military pilot Jerold O’Brien’s organic Bordeaux-style blends 100 Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

(silvermtn.com). Stay in Santa Cruz for dinner at Gabriella Café, where the emphasis is on local, seasonal fare (gabriellacafe.com; reservations suggested). SATURDAY Start the day just outside town at Hunter Hill (hunterhillwines.com; open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday), which has gorgeous estate wines, such as the cherry-andplum-infused 2006 pinot noir. Back in Santa Cruz, nosh on a vegetarian burrito at Tacos Moreno (tacosmoreno.com) before heading north on Route 17 to Los Gatos, where the Testarossa (testarossa.com; open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily; $10 tasting) is the area’s oldest continuously running winery, and is known for its pinots and chardonnays. Burn off some calories with a walk along the Los Gatos Creek Trail, which stretches nearly 10 miles from the Lexington Reservoir County Park in Los Gatos to downtown San Jose. For dinner, reserve at table at the twoMichelin-star Manresa Restaurant (manresarestaurant.com), where chef David Kinch prepares French-inspired dishes—such as poached, roasted poularde with peas and radishes, or trout conﬁt with horseradish custard and preserved plums—using local ingredients from nearby Love Apple Farm. Opt for the four-course tasting menu with wine pairings

Two of Santa Cruz’s tasting rooms: Beauregard Vineyard (top left) and Testarossa (top), whose chardonnay and pinot noir are shown above.

($67 per person; $95 per person for premium wine pairing) and save room for dessert: Pastry chef and James Beard semiﬁnalist Deanie Fox just left her post at Ubuntu in Napa to take charge of sweets. SUNDAY Go early to Ridge Vineyards (ridgewine. com; open for tastings weekends only) to avoid crowds later in the day. Its cabernet was voted the best by some of the world’s top tasters, and its tasting room affords spectacular views of the Bay Area. Backtrack on Stevens Canyon Road to Picchetti (pichetti.com; open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily), one of the area’s oldest wineries, located within the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. On Sundays, there’s live music and the picnic area here is one of the best, so pack a lunch (get the goods at the Summit Store where the meatloaf sandwich is nirvana and the cheese selection is encyclopedic) and stop by before hopping on Interstate 280 to the airport.

Santa Cruz calendar Pinot Paradise, March 27-28: More than 30 local wineries pour their best pinots. Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Express, May 23: It’s a wine auction, tasting and train ride all in one. Passport, April 17: This quarterly event gives visitors access to wineries typically closed to the public. Visit santacruzcounty. travel for details.

Beauregard Vineyard photo courtesy of the Santa Cruz County CVC/Greg Pio

One Wine Weekend

Southwest Airlines (southwest.com) has nonstop ﬂights to San Jose starting at $69 each way. Or snag a $49 oneway fare to San Francisco on Virgin Atlantic (virginamerica.com). (SFO to Santa Cruz is about 60 miles; San Jose to Santa Cruz is about 30.) Either way, you’ll want a car—or car service—to navigate the area. Avis’ “Cool Car” options include a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, or go green with a Prius from Hertz. If you’re planning to imbibe liberally, the Santa Cruz Experience (thesantacruzexperience. com) runs private tours from $50 per person.

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SportS & LeiSure Spring is time for golfers to step up their game—here are ﬁve things you should know

By Matt Jacob The world’s most famous philanderer—er, golfer—may not be ready to return to the links. But with the days getting longer, the weather warming and your stress level rising, you most certainly are. So to get you primed for the golf season, Vegas Seven offers you five “chip shots” aimed at enhancing your experience both on and off the course. Get access to exclusive clubs. Let’s be honest: It’s not you who stinks, it’s your equipment. So why not treat yourself to the latest and greatest in club technology? Manufacturers will release their 2010 lines to retailers in the coming weeks, but one club that’s already hit the market is the TaylorMade R9 SuperTri. In addition to having a head that’s the size of a desert tortoise, the R9 SuperTri features “24 combinations of face angle to promote up to 75 yards of side-to-side trajectory change, all in a more forgiving head” and “launches the ball with more spin.” Or if the crooked stick is killing Angel Park replaced about 40 acres of turf at each of its 18-hole tracks. Photo by Anthony Mair you, check out the Scotty Cameron 31; $35-$39 from May 31-Sept. 30), and Enter the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort’s California Series putter by Titleist. The the discount also applies for up to three Ladies League. The league, which was driver and putter (both available at Las guests (including non-Clark County conceived in the fall, invites women of all Vegas Golf & Tennis) retail for $400 and residents). Similar discount programs are ages and skill levels for a nine-hole round $300, respectively. Sure, it’s steep … but available at Las Vegas National, Las Veevery other Saturday at 1 p.m. “It’s can you really put a price on a birdie? gas Paiute Golf Resort, Black Mountain already got a healthy following,” says Visit a “National” Monument. Golf & Country Club and many other Christie Shaw, director of marketing Opened in 1961, Las Vegas National is local courses. Sure, it’s another plastic for the Paiute Resort, which is about 25 one of the Valley’s oldest courses, so it’s card to stuff in your wallet or affix to minutes north of downtown and comfitting that National is home to the Las your keychain, but at least this one’s prises three championship courses by Vegas Golf Hall of Fame. The shrine, worth something! renowned golf designer Pete Dye. Don’t which was erected last year, is displayed Less Is More. The economy has feel slighted, guys, as the resort will in the clubhouse and honors such local taken a 9-iron to the local golf industry’s offer a men’s league at noon Thursdays PGA Tour pros as Tommy Armour III bottom line, so you won’t be seeing beginning April 22. and Robert Gamez, as well as longtime much in the way of pricey upgrades Frequent Driver Programs. Long UNLV coach Dwaine Knight and other at area courses. That’s not say there gone are the days of $200-plus greens contributors to the Southern Nevada golf haven’t been changes. Many courses in fees (finally, something positive about scene. Stop by and check out the artithe last 18 months took advantage of the recession!). These days, you can now facts, which include the winners’ trophy the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s play a round of 18 on a quality track for from the old Sahara Invitational PGA rebate offer and underwent extensive less than $3 per hole. You can further tournament. Then grab that crooked turf-reduction programs. At Black slash that price by purchasing an annual stick and try out the new six-hole, Mountain, nearly 56 acres of turf club card that most courses now peddle. 1,500-square-foot artificial putting green (mostly rough) was converted into desert For example, OB Sports—which manthat opened late last month. “Anyone is landscaping. “It’s made things quite a ages four courses at three local golf clubs welcome to come out and use it,” general bit more user-friendly, particularly for (Angel Park, Aliante and Legacy)—sells manager Scott Greer says. beginners,” director of golf Joan Phillips a card for $149 that’s good through Dec. A League of Their Own. In the says. “The course is in the best shape 31. Among other perks, cardholders wake of the Tiger Woods scandal, it’s ever been in.” Ditto for Angel Park, receive unlimited golf at any local OB there are probably more than a few which replaced about 40 acres of turf at Sports course for a discounted rate ($49disgusted females who wouldn’t mind each of its 18-hole tracks. $55 through May 30 and Oct. 1-Dec. whacking some balls with a golf club. 102

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

rebels shooting for fourth MWC tournament title UNLV has been the most successful men’s team in the 10 years of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament, winning three titles and playing in the championship game six times. Part of the reason for the Rebels’ success has been that the tournament has been played in Las Vegas seven of those 10 years, and the Thomas & Mack Center is hosting the event again this year, which some opponents have deemed unfair, most notably New Mexico coach Steve Alford. UNLV (23-7) is the No. 3 seed in the tournament and opens play March 11 against Utah, which beat the Rebels twice in the regular season. New Mexico and BYU are the top two seeds in the tournament, respectively. The Rebels already should be part of the NCAA Tournament field heading into the conference tournament, but a victory over the Utes would practically guarantee them an NCAA berth. The MWC tournament champion gains automatic entry into the NCAA Tournament. UNLV guard Derrick Jasper is expected to return to the lineup for the first time since suffering a knee injury on Jan. 26. He could give the Rebels a big lift if healthy. Tickets for the MWC tournament can be purchased at the Thomas & Mack ticket office, online at UNLVTickets.com or by calling 739-3267. All games will be televised on either The Mtn., CBS College Sports or Versus. Check listings for times and channels. – Sean DeFrank

Derrick Jasper’s return from a knee injury would help UNLV’s defense and rebounding.

Angel Park photo courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau; Jasper photo courtesy UNLV Photo Services

Back in the Swing

Going for Broke

Foursome provides strong value in NCAA Tournament By Matt Jacob With the exception of maybe “free beer” and “cat fight,” there isn’t another twoword phase that revs up a red-blooded American male more than “March Madness.” (OK, for us married guys, perhaps hearing “I’m sorry” from the wife would rank up there ... if we ever heard it.) So to commemorate the start of the NCAA Tournament, this week’s picks feature four teams I believe offer strong value on the futures board. Two of them are legit Final Four contenders, one is a dark horse and one is a pretty big (but very familiar) long shot. I went 2-1 last week to win $390, boosting my bankroll to $6,610, as I continue to try to shake off my Super Bowl loss. Please note: Future odds vary significantly from sports book to sports book, so when making any wagers (be they on these teams or any other), I highly recommend shopping around to ensure the best payout possible. $100 (to win $700) on Syracuse (7to-1): Think of this year’s “Big Dance” like the Academy Awards. Kansas and Kentucky would be Avatar—both are flashy and both take the “wow” factor to new heights. But like the movie, I fear Kansas and Kentucky are more style over substance. On the other hand, Syracuse is The Hurt Locker: Little was expected when the season began, but the Orange consistently delivered solid, if unspectacular, performances, and like The Hurt Locker, Syracuse is an entity whose sum is greater than its parts. Also, the Orange possess two ingredients that are key come tournament time: They have a great coach in Jim Boeheim and they’re strong on foreign turf, as they won their first 11 games away from home before losing at Louisville in the regular-season finale. Just as The Hurt Locker upset Avatar to win Best Picture honors at the Oscars, don’t be shocked if Syracuse is cutting down the nets in Indianapolis in three weeks. $30 (to win $540) on Ohio State (18-to-1): Basketball is the one team sport in which a single player can win a series of games by himself. Ohio State has such an athlete in Evan Turner, the favorite to win NCAA Player of the Year honors. Turner has averaged 19.5 points, 9.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game, scoring in double figures in each of the Buckeyes’

final 16 games. Those numbers don’t look extraordinary until you realize the 6-foot7-inch forward missed a month of the season because of multiple fractures … in his spine! I banged my thumb on the edge of the counter earlier this week and almost couldn’t type this column; Turner broke bones in his back, came back a month ahead of schedule and dominated the Big Ten. He helped the Buckeyes end the regular season on a 13-2 run, and while Turner is a beast, he’s hardly a one-man show (three teammates average at least 12 points per game). Ohio State also has a veteran coach in Thad Matta and the kind of toughness needed to make it to Indy. $15 (to win $750) on Wisconsin (50-to-1): I call the Big Ten the Kim Kardashian conference: very top-heavy with a lot of junk at the bottom. The 11-member league had four quality teams that were ranked most of the season, and while Wisconsin trailed Ohio State, Michigan State and Purdue by a game in the standings, the Badgers defeated all three of those teams and finished 23-7 overall and 13-5 in conference. Wisconsin, which had additional quality nonconference wins over Maryland, Duke and Marquette, ranked third in the nation in points allowed (56.1 per game); and coach Bo Ryan is one of the best in business who has taken the Badgers to the “Big Dance” 12 straight years, advancing to the Sweet 16 four times with one Final Four appearance. $10 (to win $1,500) on UNLV (150-to1): Why not? Assuming they get an invite (a virtual certainty), there are four reasons to believe the Rebels can make a magical run: 1) Coach Lon Kruger knows how to navigate a team through the tournament; 2) UNLV had nine true road victories this season (10 if you count a neutral-site win); 3) the Rebels are extremely deep, as 11 players average at least 10 minutes per game; and 4) If you buy into history, it was 20 years ago this month that UNLV won it all. Hey, I can think of worse investments at 150-to-1 odds. Matt Jacob is a former local sports writer who has been in the sports handicapping business for more than four years. For his weekly column, Vegas Seven has granted Matt a “7,000” bankroll. If he blows it all, we’ll fire him and replace him with a monkey. March 11-17, 2010 Vegas Seven 103

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Seven QueStionS John L.Smith

Las Vegas’ top columnist talks about his city, his bar and what matters most

By Elizabeth Sewell

To say John L. Smith knows Las Vegas is an understatement. After nearly a quarter-century as the lead columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, there are not many subjects he hasn’t tackled—from the mob to mining. He writes ﬁve columns a week (including one for the company’s rural Nevada newspapers) and still has had enough material to write 12 books. He is especially attracted to “the great comic characters in Nevada”— namely those who don’t mean to be funny. While nobody in the local media is better with the skewer, Smith is also the consummate Irishman, often exposing a softer side in his column. It was in that space that he spoke of his father’s death and his daughter Amelia’s battle with cancer, which began in 2004 with the diagnosis of her brain tumor. Amelia is now in remission, and Smith, 49, credits her illness with changing his outlook on life and his approach to living in Las Vegas. Why do you love the city? There are a lot of great things about Las Vegas, but for me, as a writer, it has amazing characters that come here in very, very different circumstances. You’ve got a lot of folks who come here riding easy money, credit card money and all that, so they are a different person when they come to Las Vegas. Then there’s a whole section of the community that’s here for an opportunity to work or for a second chance. A lot of folks are busting out of the Rust Belt and different places, and they’re here to own their own home and to have a life. It has nothing to do with glamour or the club scene. They’re different people. The cool thing about Las Vegas is that it’s a hub. People wind up bumping into each other—you know, CEOs and street hustlers mixed in the same building. Do you have a favorite column? I can tell you of a few that people have reacted to. When I wrote of my father dying … I still get requests for that column. People want a copy of it. When I brought my daughter home from the hospital, that’s a column that gets asked about a lot. It’s almost always the personal ones. The smart-alecky stuff and most of the human 110

Vegas Seven March 11-17, 2010

interest stories or the things you think, Oh, man, it’s time to go bash the governor, people read those things but they don’t really care about them. They’re either entertained or outraged, but they don’t really remember them. People remember what’s personal. What matters to me most, I have found, is remembered by people. How did your daughter’s battle with cancer change your outlook? It really crushed our John L. Smith at his home away from home, the Tap House. Photo by Anthony Mair family and overwhelmed us. If you could interview anyone dead or alive, We fought through it, but it really changed my perspecwho would it be? tive on a lot of things. I was a person who always wanted I would like to interview Honoré de Balzac or more for this community than the community seemed to Charles Dickens or Mark Twain. Those would be want for itself, but afterward I just took it upon myself to amazing because they were all proliﬁc writers. They start fundraising. So that’s why half the time you’ll read were all writers who dealt with society, and to a less the Friday column, the notes column, and there will be or greater degree they all had wicked senses of humor, some fundraiser that I’m plugging. I just believe that the which I appreciate. only way we’re going to make this change is if we do it ourselves as a community, and it’s hard. Since it’s our “Drinking Issue,” why is the Tap House your bar of choice? What’s the nastiest hate mail you’ve ever Partly, years ago I lived near it. It’s also kind of a been sent? crossroads for bookmakers and for telemarketers. A lot of death threats. There’s one occasion where the Telemarketers are always hustling and they’re interestFBI wound up being called in just to sort some things out. ing, and if you’ve got bookmakers and guys with a lot of money you’re going to have law enforcement looking Who are your favorite writers? around. So I would go there and work it a little bit and I’m a big John Steinbeck fan. I love the short stories have fun. It’s also a neighborhood bar. I’m not really a of John O’Farrell and Somerset Maugham, and a lot slave to fashion. I like the new different things, but I’ve of writers people probably aren’t reading right now never been a real Strip denizen. but they were popular in their own time. I have a lot of favorite columnists, like Mike Royko and Jim Murray, Question 7.5: What’s your drink? the sports columnist. There are so many that I really Beer, tequila, beer, tequila. Rinse. Repeat. have beneﬁted from reading.